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Historically I think that it has often been the case that the rise of devotions borrowed from the West has accompanied a decline in Eastern devotions. If Vespers and Mattins are regularly served, if the Paraklisis is sung during the Dormition fast and on other appropriate occasions, and so on, then there will be less occasion for a Benediction borrowed from the Latins, so it makes a certain amount of sense that it should be so. The presence of the Stations of the Cross usually make it a pretty good bet that the Akathist and the Canon to the Holy Cross are not going to be heard in that church.

As for the Rosary, the name itself is not used in Eastern tradition, and the way in which the beads or knots or whatever are used for prayer is not the same as in Western practice. St Seraphim prayed with an old-style "prayer rope," with the komboskini, or chotki, or whatever one wants to call it, and did not follow the Latin selection of prayers; so it may be misleading to say that he prayed the Rosary. (The style one sees in depictions of St Seraphim is nowadays hardly seen except among the Old Believers.)

Nonchalance, because we do not have devotional services addressed to the Holy Mysteries? No one is permitted to enter the altar except for some duty that requires it. Only a priest may touch the Holy Table, or even the Holy Doors that grant access to it. Only a priest may place anything on the Holy Table or remove anything from it, unless one has a blessing to perform some necessary task involving such an action.

Many years ago I heard about a Greek who went to Portugal and entered a Catholic church there. There was no service in the church and the janitor was cleaning it. When the Greek entered, the janitor was standing on the altar to clean the ceiling of the sanctuary. The returned home convinced that "the Franks" did not believe in God.

There is a hilarious old book by a high-church Anglican in which he recounts his travels around Western Europe and some the oddities he saw in various churches there--wish I could remember the name. I any case, he has a number of tales of "nonchalance" in Latin churches.

No one's practice is beyond criticism; Orthodox are not all great models in this respect. But I don't really think that the Holy Mysteries are treated with less respect in Orthodox practice than the Reserved Sacrament in the West.

Stephen

I suspect the book you have in mind is 'Ceremonial Curiosities' by Edward J. G. Forse - it's available online at http://justus.anglican.org/resources/pc/england/forse.html

It's a lovely read!

Dear Stephen,

As for the rosary, there is an Old Believers' site (www.synaxis.net [synaxis.net]) where there is an article in Russian where the Old Believers say it is "permissible to refer to our Lestovka as either "chotki" or "rosary."

But "rosary" is not only not used in the East in general - it was also not the preferred usage among RC saints who promoted it, including St Dominic.

I don't believe it matters what kind of counter one uses in praying the Rule of the Mother of God, there is also no agreement on this in the East.

It basically consists of 15 decades or "desiatky" as the Encyclopaedia of Orthodoxy published at Moscow in 2003 calls them.

Each is headed with an Our Father, followed by 10 Hail Mary's (St Seraphim added the prayer "Open to us the doors of Your Mercy . . .") and a set of 15 aspects of the life of Christ and Mary are offered - these can and do vary and today in RCism one may come up with any series of meditations - my collection has gone from 15 to 50.

This prayer is never celebrated in Russian Orthodoxy as a liturgical service, but it IS prayed in certain monasteries by groups of monks and nuns.

At Diveyevo Monastery, the nuns go around the monastery reciting the Rule out loud and on feastdays they actually sing the 150 Rejoice O Theotokos prayers.

Is the Rule the same as the Western Rosary? In form and substance it is IDENTICAL. The way in which it is prayed varies not only from East to West, but in various locales in both as well.

The Orthodox are now familiar with the term "rosary" and even the Old Believers have said they find it a legitimate name for their own Lestovka or "prayer step-ladder" which is also very much like the Western "ladder-rosary."

The Old Believers also have TWO types of Lestovkas, the usual one that is associated with the Jesus Prayer and one which is 100 or 150 smaller steps divided every ten with a larger "babotchka" called the "Bogarodychnaya Lestovka" or the Lestovka of the Mother of God.

Alex