www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology New Byzantine Catholic, concerned about Revisions of the Divine Liturgy

djs,

Thank you for your post.

To be honest, I am never sure what to think about your posts. In a post yesterday I noted that I receive ongoing complaints about the proposed revisions (many of the rubrical revisions have been mandatory here in the Passaic Eparchy for several years) and that, since I disagreed with these revisions, it is difficult for me to respond to these individuals with an encouraging word. Your quote of my words together with your response suggest that those who are against the revision of the liturgy are guilty of �complacency and its nasty, almost lethal, effect on us�. If this was your meaning then I strongly disagree. Our Church may be loosing members because of complacency but there is no way that you or anyone can cite the celebration of the traditional Liturgy (or the desire to retain it as our standard) as evidence of complacency.

You also noted that Father Thomas speaks positively about the liturgical revisions. I respect his opinion and am glad he has chosen to become active in our online town square, and that he voices his beliefs. Yet I know of more than a few priests who just as strongly believe that the traditional Liturgy presents an even more positive and affirmative vision for our Church. With my own eyes I have seen parishes move from a very �low� liturgical life to a very �high� (traditional) liturgical life and double their Sunday participation. I have yet to hear anyone tell me that these revisions are responsible for bringing more people into Christ�s Church than the traditional Liturgy, let alone provide evidence.

Has the discussion of these revisions become more heated in recent weeks? Yes, I think so. To me this seems logical; as several have posted that the bishops have made their decision, are about to issue the mandates revising the Liturgy, and that our role as laity and clergy is merely one of blind submission and obedience. Neither clergy nor laity has had any say in these revisions. Surely no one would expect them accept them without comment?

You speak of something that you say we agree is central, where our genuine hope lies. But you are not specific about what this is so I do not know. My hope lies in Jesus Christ. Worship of Him in the Divine Liturgy is the very center of our existence as Byzantine Christians. Does not our entire effort to win the world to Jesus Christ flow from our celebration of the Divine Liturgy? If yes, then should not the form and quality of the Divine Liturgy be of paramount importance to every member of our Church? Are you suggesting that because I am concerned about the Liturgy that I am not �rightly-focused�?

Admin

Dear Administrator,

What a Patriarchalist you would make!

If you were in our UGCC, that is . . .

It would seem that my Church has yet a long way to go before we have "risen" to the level that the Ruthenian Church is obviously at on matters liturgical.

Your point on the focus of the Divine Liturgy is also very "Eastern" since this is what differentiates us from all other Christian missionary witness - our celebration of the Divine Liturgy through which God calls us to the Life in Christ by the Holy Spirit.

Fr. Bohdan Lypsky, memory eternal, would be proud of you!

Alex

Dear Administrator:

You're welcome. As I noted, the remarks - evoked by your comments - were not pointed at you - but really for whomever it might be of some help.

The word complacency and the "who" of complacency needs to be considered in light of Fr. Thomas's remarks:

Again excellent food-for-thought for whomever can learn something from it.

Actually, I did not. But he, with some reservations did speak of this as an "overall good thing"

Again for those with ears to hear. Please note (in reference to your criticism of DanL) that Father's remarks cannot be taken as suggesting that the liturgy or its reform is a petty matter. It's the overheated discussion of the reform.

As you note, other priests may disagree. I would say that I appreciate Father Thomas's most in conjunction with the the inspiring vision that he is providing. Where is theirs, for calibration?

What entails "heated" for me is not complaints of the contents or of the lack of input. It is that - comments or no - some have pledged not to accept things not to their liking, period. It is all of the letter campaigns, and threats to make private judgments, and to leave. And even some not so subtly veiled invitations to jurisdiction-hop.

Bishop Tikhon (OCADoW) has a scathing essay on this point - crypto-Lutherans - over a the Indiana list this week:
https://listserv.indiana.edu/cgi-bin/wa-iub.exe?A2=ind0505d&L=orthodox&F=&S=&P=71

I wouldnt call this crypto-Lutheranism, just Americanism: have-it-your-way-ism.

The church, thanks be to God, is more than me - my wants and my needs. Beautifully it provides everything that one could hope for to help us transcend such inward focus. We have a community, and because of it an opportunity to defer to one another in a kenotic way - to seek what will help the community - as judged by those who God has given us to make that judgment - and to enjoy sacrificing our own desires to meet that end.

Again offered for anyone who might gain anything from it.

Alex,

Although I am not part of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church I can offer my meager talents to offer a rallying cry for Ukrainians worldwide:

Leader: What do we want?

People: Recognition of our patriarch!

Leader: When do we want it?

People: Not for 13 more days. We�re old calendar, you know!

Admin

Dear djs,

Yes, thank you especially for sharing that quote from the Bishp on crypto-Lutheranism - quite brilliant!

Alex

Dear Father Deacon Lance,
Yesterday (I think) you wrote: "The Admin is my friend and I have both love and respect for him. However, I disagree with his position or using this forum to form or encourage criticism of our hierarchs or disobedience to their promulgations."
Obviously, we are all free to disagree with one another - and we all do so from time to time. But unless I misunderstand you completely, for which I am prepared to apologize forthwith, you are strongly implying that the Administrator is "using this forum to form or encourage criticism of our hierarchs or disobedience to their promulgations."
I've been surprised almost by the contrary - the Administrator has take relatively little part in the ongoing discussion of the proposed new text. He does not merit the criticism which you seem to imply.
As to criticism of our hierarchs, that is part of the normal process of the life of the Church. Even the Pope is not beyond criticism, let alone this or that individual hierarch, living or dead. Disobedience is far more serious, but let us leave that discussion for another time.

Incognitus

djs,

Thank you for your post.

It seems to me that neither those proposing the liturgical revisions nor those opposing them can be charged with being �complacent and intellectually and spiritually constipated.� I believe that those who love the Church and its Liturgy the most are those who are willing to speak passionately about it (on either side of this issue). I disagree with the not well-hidden conclusion in the quote that those who speak openly �make trouble� and those who have left or are leaving are �people of vision�. From where I stand it seems that those with vision are willing to continue to work towards bringing people into our Church despite the negative trends and obstacles before us. And to admit that those who have left our Church did so mostly because they were not being fed, because the celebration of the Liturgy in their parish was not dynamic and spirit-filled.

It also seems clear that the revision of the Liturgy is not a necessary prerequisite to renewal, so I do not understand your quoting text of �hostage� situations in this discussion about Liturgical revision. But you (and others) may know of things that I do not know of, so I cannot comment here.

Father Thomas speaks about the need for real change. I agree wholeheartedly in the general, but perhaps not in every specific. The real change I see that needs to occur is for us to restore the fullness of our liturgical inheritance. Our parishes need Vespers, Matins and a full celebration of the Divine Liturgy. Good Liturgy is a necessary prerequisite for evangelization. Liturgical revision is not. Someday the Byzantine Church will look at the issue of liturgical reform. Only when our Church as a whole is fully formed in our own liturgical tradition will we be able to speak to these issues.

Is this discussion overheated? Maybe. Maybe not. I can understand that those who consider these revisions to be minor might believe that that the discussions here are overheated. Yet there is just as much �heat� coming from those who support the proposed liturgical revisions, all at the very same time some of them are calling these revisions minor. If they are truly so minor why are they needed at all? And when our Church is at a crossroads it is really necessary to mandate liturgical change?

Why is the need for the our tiny Ruthenian community in America to defer to those few among us seeking revision more important than the need to defer to the larger Byzantine community by preserving a common liturgical witness? Why are those individuals seeking revision so unwilling to sacrifice their personal desires in Liturgy to the needs of the larger Byzantine community?

Admin

Dear djs,
For some reason, you reject my suggestion that books might contain useful information on the matters in question - am I corresponding with an antiliterate energumen?
My simple test proposes that the longer a given Eastern Church is in communion with Rome, the further the latinization process goes. You imply that the Ruthenians (in the USA) and the Melkites are notable exceptions - and in both cases you base that argument on the past few decades.
The Ruthenians trace their communion with Rome to the Union of Uzhhorod in 1646. Are they less Latinized now than they were in 1645? Not only is the roughly 38 years since Archbishop Nicholas Elko retired from Pittsburgh an insufficient period of time by comparison to the more than 350 years since the Union of Uzhhorod, but also this has been an unusual period throughout the Catholic Church. Nevertheless, perhaps I might play in your ball park for a minute or two. Start checking how many Ruthenian parishes still had Vespers in, say, 1960, and how many still do. Then look a bit deeper and see to what extent the reforms of the Latin liturgy in the wake of Vatican II have been replicated in Ruthenian liturgical practice - interesting data might emerge.
The same objection holds with regard to the Melkites - I am refer to what has happened since the Melkites renewed their communion with Rome around 1724; you are countering in terms of what may have happened in the USA for the past forty years or so. The influence of Patriarch Maximos IV and Patriarch Maximos V is still great, and interestingly enough, several groups have found it possible to restore an authentic heritage to some extent in the USA. But there is also the Melkite patriarchal territory to consider, and the rest of the Melkite diaspora.
I could go on, but I trust that you get my point.

Incognitus

Dear Alex,
CHRIST IS RISEN! Both ignorance and bigotry are facts of this sad world and one can encounter either or both of these unpleasant phenomena - sometimes where one least expects them. However, I don't honestly remember that I've ever called a specific individual an ignorant bigot at all - I might characterize certain pseudo-ideas as ignorant bigotry, although the expression is a bit redundant, but speaking of an idea as bigotry is not the same thing as calling another human being a bigot. Not that I'm afraid to do the latter when it's called for - Gerald L. K. Smith is a prize example, and so is that newscaster who, on the occasion of John Paul II's first visit to the US, lamented his inability to located a respectable anti-Catholic spokesman! [Can you even imagine a news service trying to find a respectable spokesman to advocate discrimation against African-Americans, for example?]
But I prefer to stick to ideas. I'm trying to think of some liturgical idea which would qualify as ignorant bigotry - oh yes, here's one: the praestantia ritus romani.
Sacramental theology - well, I suppose the notion that any thought at all in this field which does not accord with what somebody thinks is the immutable teaching of Latin Catholicism is therefore hopelessly wrong is an example of ignorant bigotry.
Theologians, of course, are just as capable of ignorance and bigotry as everyone else, I suppose. Then again, it's not impossible to find anti-intellectual bigotry running around loose. Depressing. To take an obvious example, think of all those people who actually boast that they were required to spend X number of years studying French and nevertheless can't speak a word of it! Why would one boast of being impervious to education? [I can easily think of fields at which I am all thumbs, but I'm not inclined to brag about my own inabilities!]

Anyway, can you tell me in what context I am thought to have used such an epithet?

in the Risen Lord,

Incognitus

Dear Incognitus,

Certainly, the UGCC history bears your point out - when new UGC's came into communion with Rome, they met the older "Uniates" who had been woefully Latinized to the point of being barely describable as "Eastern" (and this is also in Fr. Nazarko's book on the Kyivan Metropolitans).

But is all this "antiliterate" stuff really necessary, Sir?

If you want to unload, then I offer myself, a Hanoverian loyalist . . .

Alex

I haven't said that at all. I have expressed skepticism that these books could provide material directly connected to the issue at hand; I have pointed out that a bibilographny is not an argument; and I have, in an oblique way, expressed some skepticism on the decisiveness of such books. My reference to Iraq is this: notwithstanidng the enormous availability of resources that we have about an issue of history that we are living through, we - as a group - would likely not be able to agree on the motivations behind going to war.

Books on that analyze and explain can be interesting and have some use. But it's difficult to support that idea that they are decisive on interpretation of the past, and harder still on interpreting the future. And bibliographies are certainly not.

No. Actually I cannot say for certain that I am not an energumen. There have been rumors... But I am not antiliterate.

You may object to my response to your test. Indeed after editing time elapsed I considered going back to restrict the time interval to the last 25 years or so. You suggest that you are talking about longer term trends. Fair enough - although that was not your original test.

But I think that we can agree that the trends in behavior are not monotonic. (Otherwise why worry about the time window?) Mechanistically, I reject as without foundation any implication that we are slaves to longer term historical trends. So the relevant question is: have we (or the Melkites) turned a corner? I can't say for sure. Similary I don't think that one can logically reject this idea. (And this difficulty, of course, is connected to the limited utility of the works you mentioned.)

If what we read here concerning proposed changes in the Ruthenian Church here in the USA is true, don't be surprised when the Ukrainian Catholic Church's membership increases.

Dear Administrator,

As I said, there is some food for thought in the quoted passages. Given the broad range of criticisms, receptivity to counter-argument, and proposed actions/reactions there may be some who may benefit from the various points made. But no doubt not every point has applicability to every poster.

If true, this is sadly sounding more and more like the state of things as it is in the Roman rite as well -- both in terms of the ideas behind the liturgical revisions as well as the approach to those who prefer the tradition.

Dear djs,
CHRIST IS RISEN! That something has been true, and is demonstrably so, does not necessarily mean that we are doomed to continue the undesirable behavior pattern. But "pretend it isn't there and it will go away" is not a likely recipe for success.
Sorry a bit, but I am unaware of any Church which came into union with Rome in the past 25 years. If you know of such a Church, do tell us all about it. (I said Church, not parish).
A rejection of books before reading on the ground that the books won't contribute anything to a scholarly discussion strikes me as clear evidence that someone is being anti-literate. I continue to recommend the two books I mentioned. If you are unwilling to look at such analyses, I really have nothing to offer you.

Incognitus