www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Question # 3 on New Translation of Liturgy

How will issuing a revised Liturgy affect our relationship with other Eastern Churches? Have we officially asked for their imput, and if yes, what was their response? Can we know?

I mean this with all sincerity!

Since the Divine Liturgy of Saint Basil was shortened by Holy Father Saint John Chrysostom it was given the new name of the Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom. Now that we are going to have a new "shorten" Divine Liturgy shouldn't we give it the proper title?

Would it be proper to give the revised Liturgy the title, the Divine Liturgy of His Eminence, Metropolitan Archbishop Basil?

It seems a name change is in order since we are taken out or abbreviating the Liturgy. I would appreciate your thoughts.

Yours in the risen Christ!

Christ is Risen!
As much as I would be opposed to the abridgments if I were a Byzantine Catholic, the renaming is not appropriate.

The Liturgy of, say, Saint Basil the Great refers to the priest's (mostly silent) prayers; most of the hymns we sing out loud, and the litanies, are not intrinsically part of that Liturgy. The Liturgies of Saints Basil and Chrysostom were written before their were antiphons as we know them, and they are used in other rights where they are set in an entirely different context such that we would not recognize them. They are used in other rites without the litanies we know, without a Great Entrance, with different offertories, and so on. By the same token, the Byzantine Rite has used the "Liturgy of Saint Peter" which contains, as silent prayers, the Mass of the Roman Rite, but it is cast in the infrastructure of a Byzantine Liturgy, and has a Little Entrance and Great Entrance, and so on.

So, the Liturgy of Saint John Chysostom has the same number of prayers as the Liturgy of Saint Basil, but each prayer is shorter; since the Ruthenian Metropolia is not abridging the priestly prayers, they are not creating a new Liturgy.

Photius, Reader

CHRIST IS RISEN! The notion that Saint John Chrysostom abbreviated the Divine Liturgy of Saint Basil the GReat is a popular fable with no basis in fact. Saint John took an Antiochene anaphora and reworked it - he did not take the Anaphora of Saint Basil and cut it.

Incognitus

Though, polls on the Byzcath Forum may not be reliable samples, is it fair to say that the majority do not want a revision of the Liturgy. I still wonder why some are supporting this revision.

It seems to be, that by issuing an edited liturgy, the Archbishop will be launching a new recension (leaving the Ruthenian recension). There are fewer differences between the Russian recension, and the Ruthenian recension, than between the ruthenian recension, and this revised Liturgy.

This is big. The Byzantine Catholic Church will draw a line of permanent separation between itself, and other Churches that shared a common liturgical tradition, common books, with them until now.

Until now, ACROD, Ukrainians and others, Orthodox and Catholic, shared a common liturgical source, even if they were out of 'communion'. This 'sharing' was real and important.

If the Archbishop decides to edit and revise the Divine Liturgy, will he be leading this Church into a new era, and make permanent this division between those Churches that had at least shared a common recension until now?

All at the same moment when the new Pope is hoping our Churches will draw closer together.

Nick

Ray, the current thought amongst the more prominent liturgical scholars is that the Divine Liturgies of St. Basil and St. John Chrysostom were parallel liturgical developments. St. John Chrysostom's liturgy is not simply and abridgement or rewriting of St. Basil. St. Basil's reflects his uniquely Cappadocian influences while St. John Chrysostom's is influenced by primarily Antioch and also Constantinople.

Majority out of the 1652 registered members(822), or just those who have elected to jump into this discussion??? Or the unpolled in all the BC parishes?

There will always be dissention with regard to ANY translation or change. Personally, I do wish the antiphons were retained/added in the new translation. But, since I am not in any position of influence, I must live with what we've got. Ideally there would be allowance for more full celebration of the Divine Liturgy with the published liturgy as the minimalist standard. If everyone got their wish for changes to the Liturgy, we would wind up worse off with 50,000 different liturgies. :rolleyes:

I don't suppose the first round of English translation from Slavonic, put widely into use in the 60's, was received well by 100% of the parishes or priests either.

Steve

Should people worry or talk about alleged shortened Divine Liturgies if their parishes don't celebrate Vespers and Matins?

Though some parishes DO celebrate some form of the two services in addition to the Divine Liturgy, the majority do NOT.

So ............. if one wants to talk about the problem of shortening the Divine Liturgy, why doesn't one also talk about the total elimination of these other two liturgies?

Just think: if we restored Vespers (I'm not talking a Vigil Liturgy with half of vespers) and Matins (not a twenty minute version), we can be in Church on the weekend for at least eight hours!!!

Then we can discuss the pros and cons of abbreviating the Divine Liturgy.

We are worried about a snip here and a tuck there, but fail to miss the absentee liturgies which are also our parish tradition.

Don't fret over quicky-Liturgies yet. Ask your pastor; No! DEMAND from your pastor to celebrate a full vesper service on Saturday evenings every week and an extensive version of Matins on Sunday morning every week before Divine Liturgy. And promise your pastor that you will be at both in addition to the Divine Liturgy.

How many here will ask their pastor to restore vespers and matins (if your parish doesn't celebrate them now)??? Raise your hands.

You like psalmody? Good. Me too. Also ask your pastor that your parish should also include the Katavasia and that YOU will lead the congregation in its chant.

Joe

Amen, Joe!

By the way, starting with CANTOR-L in 1995 and the Plainchanter newsletter in 1999, a bunch of us have been working on preparing complete editions with music for Matins and Vespers, putting together music from priests, cantors and several parishes, culminating last year in books with complete music for Great Vespers and Matins for the Sundays after Pentecost. In addition to the eight Resurrectional Canons (whose first edition was blessed by Metropolitan +Nicholas of Johnstown for use in his seminary), we have settings of the irmosy for 96% of the canons in the Bokshai Prostopinije. (Books are at metropolitancantorinstitute.org; write me at ByzKat@cs.com if there are canons you need for Matins.)

The Metropolitan Cantor Institute has also been distributing weekly propers for Vespers and Matins since last autumn.

Most of what's left to do for these services - is for people to actually desire, ask and decide to celebrate them. (And yes, we asked for and obtained rubrics for reader-only services for Vespers and Matins.)

Yours in Christ,

Jeff Mierzejewski

Probably a good place to post a link to:
ON THE QUESTION OF LITURGICAL PRACTICES
A Letter to My Bishop
by Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann
[published in St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly, Vol. 17, 3, 1973, pp. 239-243.]
http://www.jacwell.org/Supplements/liturgical_practices.htm

Here's some food for thought from "words written as early as 1864 by one of the pioneers of Russian liturgical scholarship, Archbishop Philaret of Chernigov":
"For such people the order of worship with which they are familiar is the original and unchanging order. Why? Because they wholly ignore the history of Church life and, obsessed with themselves, cherish only that which they know. History clearly shows that in liturgical matters the Church dealt with reasonable freedom: she adopted new forms when she saw that the old arrangements were not altogether useful and there was need for a change....
Here, as in other matters, she neither accepted the rule of those who, according to apostolic institutions, are to be disciples and not teachers, nor did she allow herself to go into deep sleeping but paid great attention to the needs of the time and the demands of souls. ..."

Fine post, Joe.

//For such people the order of worship with which they are familiar is the original and unchanging order.//

You mean the Church has a history before my time? You mean to suggest that the way my pastor in 1963 celebrated the Divine Liturgy was not the way it was alway done? But what about May Crowning, Stations, Filioque, communion rail, kneeling, surplices, and handbells and other Ruthenian traditions?

Joe

I am getting pretty well disgusted with all the rattling going on about the Antiphons.

Something is totally wrong with the picture.

We fight tooth and nail over a verse here and a verse there, but know all too well that if a priest/pastor has always had three verses and/or short litanies between antiphons and/or the full blown Psalmody with Antiphons, THAT WILL CONTINUE!!!

If vespers was restored with comb-bound booklets "for private use" because our bishops didn't give a rats butt for years, then there will always be priests who will simply advise or agree with their cantor to take as many verses as they please.

Remember: Volunteer cantors are NOT ordained and do not promise obedience in the traditional sense. Volunteer cantors are not educated under the watchful eyes of the bishop, not ordained, do not make promises, no reciprocal relationship exists between them, is not assigned to a parish, does not usually get paid for their services - even the statutory stipend per eparchial statutes, is allowed to cantor only with the goodwishes of the pastor, and takes his/her orders from him. If the pastor wants to spend fifteen minutes extra taking all the Antiphon verses and litanies, then he will. Is this so new to our experience? End of story.

Unless the bishops send out their Antiphon police, then we have something to worry about. Technically, the proto-presbyter is encharged with such police duties. So, take it up with him.

Where-o-where was the public outcry in our parishes for the lack of vespers and matins? Where were the so-called 'traditionalists' and the liturgically obsessed? Did anyone hear of any babas toppling over pews, knocking the Stations off the walls, ripping their rosaries apart, spray painting Fatima statues, and trampling over altar boy surplices in protest to the stripping of the liturgical life of our church?

With vespers and matins gone, our priests got a load off their back. Only one service to worry about. Where were the conventions, emergency conferences, and chancery protests over the demise of the cathedral office? How many times have our priest successfully demanded their bishops to mandate vespers and matins so they didn't have to feel that it was only a voluntary situation?

Sure, there were the die-hards who kept the pilot light lit while there was no demand to fuel the flame.

Now, the hierarchs decided to take a loook at their liturgy. We should applaud them for finally taking time away from other more important duties to address the one thing we, as Christians, do best: worship. Gee!

But with the looks of it, abbreviating an Antiphon here or there is only a teeny-tiny, itsy-bitsy, smidget of a problem of a much larger and greater problem.

Hmmmmmm, what could THAT problem be, Olly?

Can anyone guess?

Anyone have a clue?

Care to take a stab at it?

Or is the elephant in the middle of the room so big that we can't see what the problem is?

Joe

If we can not make an effort to restore a true liturgy without gutting parts to keep the time of the Divine Liturgy (main liturgical service) under an hour, we need not worry about vespers, matins, etc. If people can't be in church for a minimum of 1 hour 20 minutes, then they shouldn't come at all. Why must we placate the faithful by offering a "speed liturgy" just to keep their butts in the pews (and don't start the pew issue again)? Why are we trying so hard to reform by reduction? If we can't have a proper liturgy, we need not worry about everything else just yet.

Ungcsertezs

//... we need not worry about vespers, matins, etc. If we can't have a proper liturgy, we need not worry about everything else just yet.//

But isn't vespers and matins a part of celebrating a "proper" liturgy? Please tell me what was so proper about eliminating them?

//Why are we trying so hard to reform by reduction?//

My friend, we have been doing that for decades. Did you not notice it?

//Why must we placate the faithful by offering a "speed liturgy" just to keep their butts in the pews (and don't start the pew issue again)?//

Who is "we?" And what do you mean by the faithful being placated? Are you really referring to the faithful? No one should have their butt in a pew anyway. Liturgy is "people work." One can't work while sitting on the job.

//If people can't be in church for a minimum of 1 hour 20 minutes, then they shouldn't come at all. //

Why put a time on it at all? We should put aside all earthly cares (and time) to worship God. Lovers don't want to leave the embrace of their beloved. Simply put, we aren't lovers anymore. We don't get any because we don't give any.

Joe