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Father, bless!

In an earlier post in this thread, you mentioned the concept of the angelic participation in the Liturgy.

It was only a few years ago that I had a chance to read through some of the private priestly prayers of the Liturgy, and it was like in the movies where all of a sudden the frame splits and you see BOTH sides of the telephone conversation. At least to my eye, it appeared that the angels are acknowledged and almost conversed with throughout the Liturgy, but it's only during the Cherubic Hymn and a litany or three (depending upon which ones are taken at YOUR parish) that they become apparent to the layfolk.

I wonder if you could expand on this?

Thanks for a FASCINATING thread - see ya next week.

Sharon

Fr Dcn John,

the prayer at the bowing of the head is taken aloud in the eparchy of Van Nuys.

Subdeacon John Montalvo

For the record, I don't know whether or not the prayer at the bowing of heads is taken aloud or not in the new translation. We don't take it aloud in Parma.

I have potentially wandered into another insight regarding: "Bow your heads to the Lord." and its epiclesis moment. I have not been able to find this one anywhere and I hope I am not going out on a limb.

I theorize that this command derives from John 19:30. This passage has a very different description for Christ's moment of death than the Synoptics. In the New American translation, this passage reads:

When Jesus had taken the wine; he said, "It is finished." And bowing his head, he handed over the spirit.

Again, an epiclesis moment!

To me, it is a profound gesture that at this time, the deacon traditionally regirds his orarion in the form of a cross (I know there are many of you who would submit that this symbolism is mere sentiment and that the regirding has a purely functional basis.)

John

Not to change the subject, but I have a yet another question regarding Ruthenian practice. (Please do not construe this as a criticism.)

Why do Ruthenians not routinely have a Theotokion on Ordinary Sundays?

John

"Bow your heads to the Lord" appears to have been taken from Exodus 4:31:

"And the people believed: and when they heard that the Lord had visited the children of Israel, and that he had looked upon their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshipped.

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Regarding the theotokia, they more properly belong to Matins. I personally like the theotokia but it is sometimes a matter of pastoral brevity. My preference would be to include all of the texts for those who want them and allow each parish to take or abbreviate to best serve the needs of the parish community.

Dear Administrator;

Thank you. The Exodus passage you quote is the one most often listed as the biblical source for this command. I have not been able to find my reference point anywher else. (You would think that would deter me. It does not.) I apologize as I now realize this probably should have been a separate thread.

It makes little sense to me to incorporate an Exodus quotation at this point of the liturgy. While I can understand its relation to God's covenantal promise, what is occurring at this point in the liturgy is so much more. It is the fulfilment of that promise via the voluntary acceptance of Christ's death. This is what is happening in Christ's bowing of His head.

In order to make sense of this, I refer you to John, chapters 19 and 20.

If you want to think utilizing iconic imagery, ponder the icon of Christ on the cross, with the Blessed Virgin, and the beloved disciple at its foot. To me, the bowing of heads is us as the beloved disciple, receiving the bestowal of the Mother (the Church). This voluntary bowing of our heads (as beloved disciples!) corresponds to Christ's voluntary bowing. This is an "epiclesis moment" as Christ's sacrifice becomes simultaneously the gift of the Spirit.

Now this fits perfectly with what comes next liturgically. The body is broken, the blood is blessed, the Zeon is added. This exactly corresponds to John chapter 20. The warm water again signifies the Spirit, yet another, "epiclesis moment".

John

Dear Administrator:

For the source of my question, I refer you to Appendix 2: Theotokia of Father David's Common Typicon.

It appears that the taking of a Theotokion may be chosen as a local custom but is not prescribed by the Ruthenian Apostol. My only question is why? Does it have something to do with the historical development of the liturgy, etc?

John

I apologize for the obfuscation of this thread. However, this "epiclesis moment" or "every liturgical action requires an epiclesis" concept is consuming me.

The next thought I have had is in regard to the Our Father. We all know that the words are those that were given to us by Jesus himself. However, by placing the Our Father after the anaphora, it has been given new significance.

This perfect prayer to the Father, given to us by the Son, is made complete by the only sacrifice sufficient to God. God the Son, through the activity of God the Holy Spirit, is given to the Father. Our Prayer to the Father is thus complete by this activity of the Spirit. The perfect prayer is made even more perfect, an "epiclesis moment" once again.

John

This is an interesting point. The Bohorodicen (Theotokia) are in the Ukrainian Catholic pew and cantor's books. They are also present in the official 1988 English/Ukrainian Liturgikon. These are beloved by many of the UGCC faithful who know some of them by heart.

I wonder if the omission of these is more a matter of local development and abbreviation? I don't recall ever seeing the Theotokia texts in the Levkulic or later Byzantine Ruthenian Divine Liturgy texts nor have I heard them used at any Byzantine Ruthenian parishes, now come to mention it during the Divine Liturgy.

And with regards to the point from the Adminsitrator about the Theotokia being more appropriate for Matins, this is not substantiated by any typikon extant. It is always appropriate to sing hymns to the Theotokos regardless of the service.

The Theotokia from the Divine Liturgy, at least in the 1988 UGCC English and Ukrainian translations, are not the same as the Theotokia from Matins from the Slavonic Oktoechos. This would indicate the development of a separate selection of texts honoring the Theotokos placed directly into the Divine Liturgy.

There appears to be significant variability in these texts between Slavic and Greek (or Greek-derived such as Melkite) usage. The 1988 UGCC texts for the Theotokia at the Divine Liturgy in the eight tones are different from those included by Archbishop Raya in Byzantine Daily Worship. So if it is included in BDW it is presumably a standard Melkite practice as well. The differences in texts may be a manifestation of local variations between Kyivan and Greek/Melkite practice.

Hi it's me again:

I have a question for Fr. David. I hope he is still out there somewhere.

After the Great Entrance, the priest requests prayers for himself twice, but a bishop only once. Is there a reason for this?

John

Isn't the ordinary Theotokion for a Sunday "Steadfast Protectress of Christians"?

Fr. Deacon John,

Missed your post. Thanks to Brian for bringing it back to life.

I do not know why the theotokia were not addressed in the official Ruthenian liturgical books. My guess would be that it might be because the rules for singing kontakia and theotokia at the Divine Liturgy are so complex and that there were so many different variants that they simply chose not to address the issue. I would highly doubt that it had anything to do with the historical development of liturgy. I think the recent dropping of the theotokia in the Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic Church was a purposeful one intended to shave a few more minutes off the liturgy. I am against it but I'd rather see the theotokia be dropped than the Office of the Three Antiphons gutted. In the parish I grew up in the theotokia was always taken. It appears to have been dropped when parishes started using the Levkulic Pew Book (which did not include these texts) in the late 1970s.

To summarize for everyone else what Fr. Petras has provided in his version of the Typicon:

The official Ruthenian liturgical books published in Rome (i.e., the Apostol and etc.) do not appear to address the use of Theotokia at the Divine Liturgy. The use of the theotokia are addressed in Dolnitsky's Typicon and it gives the following options:

1. One of the Kontakia of the feasts of the Mother of God.
2. If the church is dedicated to the Mother of God the kontakia of the patronal feast.
3. The Theotokion of the tone of the week.
4. The common theotokia "O gentle protectress...."

The Mikita Typicon does not recognize option 3 above. Most parishes which do sing a theotokion sing "O gentle protectress...." with every tone.

The "Byzantine Liturgical Chant" book published in 1970 listed that the Theotokia consist of the kontakia for Tone 1 - Feb 2 / Meeting, Tone 2 - Aug 15 / Dormition, Tone 3 - Oct 1 / Protection, Tone 4 - Sept 8 / Nativity Theotokos, Tones 5, 6 & 7 - "O Gentle Protectress", and Tone 8 - Mar 25 / Annunication. The English / Slavonic prayer book from when I was a kid provides the same format. The Malyj Izbornik Cerkovnyj from Uzhorod (1924) gives different texts (and I wonder if they would match the ones mentioned by Diak).

The OCA liturgical books in my collection do not address the theotokia at all nor do they give the texts (yet most parishes do take theotokia).

Admin

Hi! I'm still around, but since the 6th, I've been having internet problems. I hope to return to continue this thread soon. As to Deacon Petrus' question - this has been discussed, and it seems that the Liturgicon and Archeraticon simply follow different traditions, and I see no special significance in the variations.

Fr. David

Dear Fr. Joe:

Many of us in the Latin Church do not consider the International Committee of English in the Liturgy (ICEL) that has given us our English translations for the past 30 plus years a benefit.

In fact, Rome has recently rejected their translation of the second edition of the Latin Church's missal. The criticism was devastating and was not even meant to be complete. It touched on only some of the highlights. We have wasted many years and much money for nothing.

The third edition of our missal is now out in Latin but Rome says that ICEL must be completely restructured so that it is not doing paraphrasing but actually doing the work of translation.

We have a new edition of the book used for the readings at the Liturgy and it only received a provisional five-year approval. No wonder! It rolls off the lips of the proclaimer in the same waythat a square-wheeled stone wagon rolls down the street.

BOB

Dear Frs. David and Joe, and brothers and sisters:

I have used Byzantine prayer books and service books for my personal prayer for over 30 years. I appreciate the problems of translation because I have done some in my student days. I appreciate the way in which the Holy Spirit has moved the people within the Byzantine Church to express the Faith common to us all.

I appreciate the poetry of the phrases in many of the older translations used by Catholic and Orthodox Byzantine Christians. It has given me a reason to ponder the phrases and meditate on them to try to find the deeper meaning.

Words are chosen carefully. Often they are not interchangeable. " . . . ages of ages" says to me that the concept of eternity is a bit beyond my grasp and should not be fine tuned. It suggests that "age" parallels the Scriptural reference to all of created time as the present age: something unable to be clearly defined to ancient peoples who often counted time by the reign of kings in a sequence. So this age is all the time we can imagine within the entire created order of time, from Adam and Eve to the Final Judgment--something that the ancients would have seen as somehow endless. Then "ages of ages" means that eternity--or life with God--is an endless collection of endless collections: something as far beyond our comprehension as trying to imagine the entire span of created time. But, for me, it's in the poetry of the expression.

It seems to me that good Liturgy communicates the mysteries of the Faith through direct and sometimes veiled words. We can express as far as we are able the mysteries of the faith and sometimes must be a bit vague.

I also must sympathize with you about the changes in your Pontifical Liturgy. Latin Catholics have been pummeled with so many changes in the last 30 years that we no longer have a tradition. We are at the mercy of the latest liturgical fad. Liturgy needs to be something that is familiar because sometimes continuity and sameness are necessary to carry people over dry periods. We need to absorb what our Fathers in the Faith have fought for and preserved for us. Let the liturgists know that the person in the pew who lives the Lord and is drawn closer to Him through familiar singing and customs is not necessarily some ignorant peasant that needs constant correcting from "experts."

In the Orthodox Church there are many variations in the serving of the Liturgy. Why can't the Ruthenians have a bit of unique practice in their local Church? That is the beauty of unity and diversity in the Faith.

Just a nosy, but supportive Latin brother.

BOB