www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology "New Translation "of the Liturgy

Dear Tony,

Thanks for your post. Can I suggest that you please go back and reread my earlier posts?

There are two separate issues here: 1) the standard for the Liturgy and 2) the quality and style of the celebration. Father David�s presentations often conflate the two. One simply cannot improve the quality of the liturgical celebration by changing the standard.

I have been consistent in stating that I believe our liturgical books must be keep to the standard published by Rome. Minor changes can only be made by all the Churches of the Ruthenian recension (Orthodox and Catholic) and major changes can only be made by all the Byzantine Churches together (Orthodox and Catholic).

I have also been consistent in stating that the solution to the problem of priests not celebrating the Liturgy according to the official books is not to change the official books but to change the way the priests celebrate the Liturgy. I have never once suggested leaving things as they are, only that the restoration of a more proper celebration of the Divine Liturgy be accomplished pastorally over a decade or so. [The only caveats I have offered here are that: 1) parishes that are slated to close in the next five years be left alone and 2) priests over 70 who are never going to change also be left alone as they will soon retire.]

If our bishops spent the next ten years leading our priests to celebrate the Liturgy according to the official liturgical books of the Ruthenian recension there will be no violence to the tradition.

I have seen examples of parishes successfully going from a very �Low Byzantine Mass� to a very full Liturgy (every litany and prayer in the 1964 Liturgicon with nothing omitted) in less than five years. I have seen people ask their priest why they can�t have teplota and antidoron. The full Liturgy is something the people are very open to.

Admin

Seems reasonable to me. Let's all suggest that to our bishops in a respectful manner and move on to growing the Church.

Dan L

Dan,

I hope that all the discussions here have been respectful. If I have been disrespectful in any way to anyone I apologize.

Might I suggest that there is a key idea that all of us need to grasp in these discussions? The discussions on the Liturgy are not something we need to finish and then move on from. The Divine Liturgy is the very center of our lives as Byzantine Christians. Everything flows from the Liturgy. Without a good and proper celebration of the Liturgy all the other things (evangelization, etc.) are either impossible or very difficult.

Admin

John,

I too apologize for any and all disrespectful comments I have made. I forget sometimes that Annunciation is not a typical BC parish. I take no credit for its quality. I simply rejoice in it and pray that all parishes will celebrate Divine Liturgy as they realize more fully in whose presence they celebrate.

I firmly believe that the more we realize the presence of God the more we will evangelize.

Dan L

A thought, hopefully not too far off topic:

If we are to revitalize, is there not also the need to put into the hands of the congregation, new-comers and visitors, a people's book that includes musical notation for all to follow? In other houses of worship that I have visited with friends, I am always welcomed and can follow and participate in whatever service because there is always something available in print. In our Byzantine faith, one Sunday liturgy may differ from another�s which may be only 5-10 miles down the road.

My impression of one the goals of the commissions appointed by +Archbishop Judson, was to provide a more accurate translation of our ancestor's liturgy and provide a uniform priest/cantors/people's book which could be followed by anyone who walks into one of our churches.

That I will agree with, when I walked into Annunciation in Homer Glen, I had a sense of what the Russian envoy's felt when they visited Constantinople. The liturgy blew me away, it was the awesome physical, mental, and spiritual worship of God that I had been longing for.

When the liturgy is done correctly then it draws people in, if not it pushes people away.

John

Administrator,

I respectfully submit that you also conflate the two issues. It is hard to tease out of some of your posts what you are talking about. Just on the last page you said "The Liturgy is not broke. It does not need to be fixed." Yet you give no indication of which Liturgy you are talking about.

T

Yes! For years, we've had leaflets and small cardboard books that keep falling apart. I am tired of having to move music sheets from one hand to the other to free-up a hand to make the sign of the cross. One book is what we desperately need. More people read music than you would think, so the notation needs to be there as well.

Zeeker,

I was not aware that the Byzantine Liturgy was done differently in different BC Churches. I've attended a few BC Churches and did not find this. The quality of presentation varies and many still use the pews as if they were sacred objects and also use kneelers but I had no trouble following the liturgy. I even attended an all Arablic Melkite DL and did not have much difficulty in following along though I do not know the language. It was a beautiful experience.

Nevertheless, I certainly agree that a version with musical notation is a wonderful thing.

Dan L

Tony,

Criticism accepted with thanks. I thought that I was extremely clear in keeping the two issues separate. But if you have found my posts confusing then I am sure that others have also found them confusing. I will strive to keep the two issues separate in my future posts. If some of my future posts are confusing please do me the favor of asking me to clarify my thoughts.

Admin

I�m sorry, but what the Administrator says still does not make sense. Perhaps he is still �shadow-boxing� with what happened in Passaic in 1996. He states frequently that any major change will cause people to leave, yet he is advocating substantial change from what was done before 1996 by the introduction of the full 1941 Liturgicon. Granted, he says it should be done over a period of ten years, but this is the Administrator�s rules. I myself see the value of a period of transition, but not necessarily as long as he advocates. Ironically, the 1996 changes in Passaic brought their liturgy into more conformity with the 1941 Liturgicon, especially in the case of the Presanctified Liturgy.
The question is the 1941 Liturgicon (that is, the one published by the Sacred Congregation for Oriental Churches). Adaptation of the typical parish of the Pittsburgh Metropolia to this Liturgicon would be: 1) the elimination of latinizations. Most latinizations does not involve text, but rubrics and appearances. For example, it would require the installation of an icon screen - traumatic for some parishes, of no concern for parishes that have them, the re-introduction of the zeon, not entirely visible to the people anyhow. Things that would affect the faithful would be: standing rather than kneeling during the anaphora, and this is in the new translation - not in the liturgicon, but in the people�s book for use in the pew; the elimination of the �filioque,� accomplished, as near as I can tell without major catastrophe in Parma, Van Nuys and Passaic. I�m trying to think of other elimination of latinizations that will impact on the congregation, but can�t think of any. 2) the addition of litanies. This would be a substantial change for most people. Certainly, for example, in Aliquippa, after the death of Msgr. Simondejka, there was a great change in the Liturgy. The people seem to have accepted it and adapted to it over the years. I don�t think, however, that Fr. Elias added the litanies step by step, at least not over a ten year period. And you are correct, it is not enough to change the standard of the liturgy, but also the quality. Here, certainly, is one of the keys. When Parma reformed the rites of initiation to restore communion to infants, one priest literally bellowed his pain - �EVERYONE�s going to leave the Church.� They didn�t - and the transition went 1000 % more smoothly in parishes where the priest explained the reasons for the change to the people. However, in parishes where the priest resisted the change, there were and still are some problems. The new translation, then, is being introduced in two stages - first to the priests, who will celebrate it, and, hopefully, explain it, and to the people, by means of various catechetical resources. We do what we can - some people will not hear, others will resist, but we do what we can.
That being said, there are not really anything that I would call liturgically, �major changes.� The most important change is in the presbyteral prayers, which will add 7-10 minutes to the Liturgy, but which are vitally important. The people�s hymns give us a theology of the Liturgy as glorification of God and the union of the heavenly and earthly realities, but the presbyteral prayers go even more to the core of the meaning of the Liturgy - the liturgy as the Paschal Mystery of Christ. This meaning is needed for this generation, and has been neglected for generation after generation. Why? Because the liturgy was not in a language understood by the people. As I have said, the important decision was to put the liturgy into the vernacular - and with this comes the practice of the presbyteral prayers. It required NO CHANGE in rubrics, just the activation of the rubrics that were already there. It is not �anti-ecumenical� or �anti-Orthodox,� since it is widely done in those Orthodox Churches that have adopted the vernacular. It�s a moot point in the others, and would be a moot point in our church if we stay in Church Slavonic. One of the problems of the Administrator�s position is that he seems to think that liturgical history begins now, whereas the question of the presbyteral prayers has been addressed and practiced in the Orthodox Churches in modern times at least from the 50's and in our church at least from the 70's.
Nor can appeal be made to the 1941 Liturgicon without qualification, since the Sacred Congregation for Oriental Churches, the authority of that translation, has judged our 2005 translation to be in essential conformity with it. Attempts to deny that this approval was not received is wishful thinking.
An aside to �John Damascene.� I stand by what I said. You have me at a disadvantage, since you remain anonymous, but I was there, obviously. Your statement that questions and discussion was not allowed is simply not true - were you actually there?

Pardon a intrusion from a Westerner, but may I quote a statement from someone (not me) who is wrestling with this on the other side of the fence, "the first alert that something may be adrift is when the new translation(s) is(are) shorter than the original text(s)/translation(s)".

Again, due to the poor translations from the Latin previously done by the ICEL, the Roman Rite is again revising its Liturgical texts(Roman Missal & The Liturgy of the Hours).

I will again only observe my brethern wrestle with the most important part of our spiritual life.

james

I thank Father David for his post. I also again thank him for his service to the Church and for his willingness to participate in these discussions.

I apologize for not making myself clear.

Yes, people do leave when major changes are made. Father David has provided evidence of that with his account of the man who never came back once the Liturgy went into English. We also have evidence of people who have stayed in parishes where the quality of the liturgy has been, shall we say, less than wonderful.

I have seen people leave here in the Passaic Eparchy when some of the revisions were mandated, when the Presanctified was changed and, most recently, when the Paschal services were changed. I refer Father David back to my earlier post to find more detail about this. As I have noted earlier, I believe we have seen an average of a 10-15% drop in attendance here in the Passaic Eparchy because of both the revisions themselves and the way they have been introduced. No, I do not have formal surveys to support this claim but I know numbers are kept in many parishes and could be analyzed. Yes, this figure I am offering excludes the losses due to death.

Would the changes to the Liturgy as celebrated in many places to the 1941 rubrics constitute a major change? The answer, of course, depends on what one sees as �major�. I suspect that even in the �lowest� of parishes the people still remember litanies, epistles and the Creed (I really hope there are no parishes quite this �low� anymore). I do not think that the restoration of the 1941 rubrics (from their perspective) would constitute much of a change at all. From the worshipper�s perspective the return of the litanies would be seen as a return to an English language �Slavonic High Mass�. [Indeed, the only two litanies I do not remember ever being prayed when I was growing up were the Litany of the Third Antiphon and the Catechumens Litany, although the ones in the Levkulic Pew Book were the norm at �High Mass�.] The other issues � prosphora, teplota, antidoron, and etc. � are all very important but they are not something that people notice as much. These issues are more directly related to the worship experience inside the altar.

The mandate of the Revised Presanctified Liturgy in the Passaic did great violence to the worship experience of the average person. Perhaps some do not realize how attached people get to litanies and a familiar text? To change these is to do great violence to their spiritual lives. [Maybe the liturgical life at the seminary has been in such flux for these many years of experimentation that no one remembers liturgical stability anymore?] As I noted earlier, the parish I belong to saw attendance drop from about 120 on Fridays to about 35-40 on Fridays, with occasional peaks at about 50 or 60. People from other parishes that went from a vibrant celebration of the Levkulic Presanctified (which was not a perfect edition) to the Revised Presanctified Liturgy have given similar accounts. The people don�t care that someone somewhere else believes that these changes are good for them. They care only that they changes have affected them and they don�t like them. To examine just the beginning of the Revised Presanctified the people went from having memorized the psalms and litanies (one format ~12 times a year when celebrated every W & F) to different psalms for each day of the week and no litanies (two formats ~ 6 times a year when celebrated every W & F).

Yes, all of these could be traumatic for some parishes. That is why they need to be done with great care. The installation of an icon screen should be accomplished over many years, starting with perhaps the main two icons on appropriate temporary stands (and etc.). Standing instead of kneeling during the Anaphora can be done by changing the books and allowing the people to continue to kneel, with an education process over many years which does not in any way make those older parishioners who continue to kneel feel out of place. Zeon, as Father David notes correctly, is more matter for the clergy and those issues (including prosphora � getting away from pre-cut) are multi-year efforts among the clergy.

I don�t agree here. Most of our older people remember the old �Slavonic High Mass�, complete with litanies (or at least those given in the Levkulic Pew Book). They also loved to sing �Hospodi pomiluj� and sang wonderful harmonies. They were such a favorite that even when the litanies between the antiphons were not taken the �Hospodi pomiluj, Hospodi pomiluj, Tebi Hospodi, Amin� continued to be sung until it was lost when the Liturgy went into English.

Father David references Aliquippa. I happen to know that Father Elias immediately jumped from the �Byzantine Low Mass� to almost everything in the Levkulic Pew Book (I think the only exception was the litany before the dismissal). I visited there on one of the first Sundays Father Elias was in Aliquippa. I remember seeing the older people thanking him for taking the liturgy they way it used to be. Within two years Father Elias was taking every litany in the 1964 Liturgicon except the Catechumen Litany (which he now takes except during Pascha). I remember he had an extensive series of adult education on the Liturgy along with Sunday sermons. I remember his excitement when he told me that he had discussed teplota at adult education and the people asked him �Why don�t we have that here?� [Of course, teplota was reestablished at the very next Liturgy.] And I also remember the older people saying, �Finally we are getting our iconostasis� when the parish committee decided to go ahead with installing the icon screen. The majority of the people never wanted the liturgical reductions. The bishops and clergy did this.

Now I am not adamant about a ten-year period. Father David is quite correct that a restoration to the rubrics of the 1941 Liturgicon need not take ten years. But priests and people are human and I doubt all of our clergy is as eager to celebrate the fullness of the 1941 Liturgy as Father Elias has been. Education and patience are always necessary. Things which are in the common memory (like litanies) will be easier to introduce than innovations (like mandating prayers aloud which drastically change the flow of the Liturgy).

I respectfully disagree. The praying aloud of selected presbyteral prayers and the elimination or condensation of litanies constitutes a major change. They constitute a major change in the flow of the Divine Liturgy and increase the focus on the priest. To use the litanies as an example, each had his own part. The deacon prayed the petitions. The people prayed �Lord, have mercy�. The priest prayed his prayer quietly and then concluded the litany with the doxology. When litanies are removed to make room for the priest to pray the people are denied their prayer of �Lord, have mercy.� This shift seems to be acknowledged in the new text with the replacement of the terms �Deacon�, �Priest� and �People� with the terms �Deacon�, �Celebrant� and �Response�. This seems to be an adoption of the Western idea that only the priest celebrates the liturgy and the people merely respond to him. I had always believed that the priest and people celebrated the liturgy together.

I respectfully disagree. I don�t think that the presbyteral prayers went silent because the language they were being prayed in was a dead language. ISTM that they went silent because the rise of the sense of mystery surrounding the Byzantine Liturgy.

I think the Church needs to consider here that the development of the icon screen and even the fact that those of use who are laymen do not touch the chalice, take communion in the hand, or even enter the altar (etc.) are all related. If you disturb one of these elements you disturb them all. They are all interrelated and must be considered.

Now some (I don�t know about Father David) think that we ought to rid ourselves of the element of mystery in Byzantine worship much like the Roman Catholics did after Vatican II. An occasionally out loud praying of the Anaphora can be considered to be like a verbal equivalent of a glimpse through the holy doors. But the mandating praying of the Anaphora is like not just opening the holy doors but really the verbal equivalent of removing the icon screen entirely and turning around the altar. The loss of the door rubrics in the new texts seems to indicate such a direction.

I agree entirely with Father David on his point about the vernacular. Use of the vernacular simply follows the long-established custom of Orthodoxy. I believe that Photius noted earlier that Russian Orthodox missionaries were using the native languages of the Alaskan Eskimos, which shows that this custom didn�t end with SS. Cyril & Methodius. It is just a personal opinion on my part, but I think that the Greeks have been slow in this because they are still recovering from their sufferings under Islamic yoke (and the Russians from communism). I would not be surprised to see both the Greeks and Russians move to their respective vernacular languages in the next generation or so.

I am confused by his other point. Is he suggesting that the 1941 Liturgicon contains directives that the traditionally quiet prayers be prayed out loud? I am certainly not a language scholar (I have trouble with English!) but others have told me that the rubrics most definitely direct certain prayers to be prayed quietly and assume that others are prayed quietly.

Liturgical history goes back to the time of Christ. But we must be careful not to pick and choose certain practices from the past without careful consideration and understanding of the working of the Holy Spirit across time. It is proper to consider that the Holy Spirit might be guiding the Church in a new direction. But it would be wrong to consider that the Holy Spirit did not guide the Liturgy to the point we inherit it from. I think it is also wrong for us to change the shared standard and distance ourselves from Orthodoxy, and formally creating a Third Way as this Revised Liturgicon does.

I have always agreed that other Orthodox Churches have discussed the possibility of praying the traditionally quiet prayers out loud. A few even allow their priests to do this (notably here in the United States), although the current Patriarch of Constantinople has apparently forbidden the custom. I am unaware that any Orthodox Church has mandated the praying of the traditionally silent prayers out loud (which the Revised Liturgy does). Until there is consensus across Orthodoxy about this issue we should not make mandates or make official changes to the Liturgicon.

I have also stated numerous times that everything that Father David has proposed might someday become the norm across Orthodoxy. But until they do become the norm we should not be making official changes to the Liturgy.

It is not necessary to issue a Revised Liturgicon to move the celebration of the Divine Liturgy in our parishes towards the 1941 standard. An earlier set of bishops asked Rome to prepare a set of official liturgical books for the Ruthenian recension. This is the standard we must strive to meet. It is only by working together with the other Churches of the Ruthenian recension that we can modify this recension standard. It is only by working together with the other Churches of Orthodoxy that we can make the major changes to the Liturgy (and those that are being proposed with this Revision are indeed major).

I again thank Father David for his service to our Church and for his willingness to participate in these discussions.

Admin

Personally, I'm looking forward to seeing the new translation / new publication of a pew book, etc.

I am a newcomer to Byzantine Church and I have embraced it lovingly. I have a borrowed soft-bound Levkulic pew book in horrible shape. I would love to have a new book!

Fr David - can you hazard a guess as to when we (the faithful) might actually see anything? I've been reading the discussion here for months now about the new liturgy - but the big question is "WHEN?"

I want my new pew book!

Likewise, regarding going back to the faithfulness to the 1941 rubrics - will the deacon be doing the great entrance with the diskos sitting on his head / klobuk?

Fr. David wrote: "The one major step that we are taking is the restoration of presbyteral prayers for audible chanting - and this is an organic development when the Liturgy moves into the vernacular - and which is happening in Orthodox Churches that move into the vernacular - and why the Russians and Greeks forbid it - because they ALSO FORBID THE VERNACULAR. I am willing to discuss the Antiphons - which are more a cantors problem - and which do not appear in the 1941 textus receptus anyhow - and the litanies, and I think I�ve expressed my opinion on the litanies."

Father David, I guess that your statements lead me to a few questions/statements that the above paragraph taken from your earlier post raise for me.

1) I guess that I am failing to see how, in moving from a liturgical language (ie. Church Slavonic/Liturgical Greek) to vernacular, the priestly prayers that have been taken silently except for their doxologies, organically grow to be taken aloud, and how this is a restoration? Restoration? From what period? When was the last point in history that these prayers were consistently heard aloud? And how, because a Liturgy is not served in a vernacular, are the same prayers forbidden to be taken aloud? Do these prayers not deserve to be taken aloud in Slavonic as well as English, Spanish, or French?

When the RC Mass was in Latin, a lot of prayers were also not taken aloud, including the Canon of the Mass. With the advent of vernacular, most everything the priest prays was instructed to be taken aloud. The notable exceptions that I can think of are the short prayer for blessing before the Gospel, the prayer at the addition of water to the wine in the chalice, and the priest's private prayer before his reception of Holy Communion. Even then, I've heard more than a few priests recite these private prayers aloud, so that NOTHING is covered and hidden from the people any longer! Is that what is happening here? Unfortunately, in this regard, I see a parallel between the RC revisions of the Mass, and the promulgation of this Liturgy.

Many, if not the majority of Orthodox in the USA also serve the Liturgy in vernacular and very few, with notable exceptions, appear NOT to take these priestly prayers and the Anaphora out loud. I think that when we, as a Church, are instructed by Rome to follow the practice of our Orthodox counterparts, I feel it disingenuous to suggest that we look only to what Orthodox in other countries are doing. Obviously I don't think that Rome meant that either. We have enough Orthodox Churches in this country, and they together far outnumber us, to be able to garner their current praxis in regard to the Liturgy.

2) I am more than well aware that most parishes, mine included on a regular Sunday, take only one verse of the Antiphons. Bu t then again, that is currently mandated practice in my diocese. On holydays, where unique Antiphons are prescribed, we take all the verses of all three antiphons. We find that this is one place where most all "the People" sing, and quite well at that. Why is this a "cantor" issue when this is "the People's" part and they are not even given the opportunity or option to exercise it in full? Why not restore this portion of the Liturgy?

I guess that this gets down to the crux of my whole issue with the way the Liturgy is celebrated now in Passaic and will be in the whole Metropolitan province once it is promulgated. The priest is not only leading the Liturgy, but the liturgical action stops, so that he can RECITE these formerly silent prayers. In the meantime, and forgive me if I am wrong, but I believe that one of the criteria that was considered by the commission in revising the Liturgy, and you I believe, was the one who posted it, was the Liturgy should be around an hour in length.

Now the Anaphora aside, as it is the center piece, here we have a number of prayers, formerly silent and recited under some other ongoing liturgical action by the cantor and people, now being taken aloud by the priest. We also have parts, the Antiphons for one, that are �the People�s� that are for all intents and purposes, being cut so that the time can be evened out, and the priest can recite his prayers aloud. Do the rubrics call for these prayers to be RECITED (as they do now in Passaic) or CHANTED?

I am not against hearing the CHANTED priestly prayers on occasion or even the Anaphora a bit more often than that, but to mandate that they have to be taken aloud all the time promotes a creeping clericalism in the Liturgy�

All this being said, I return to this thread to read from the Admin:

�quote:

Father David wrote:
That being said, there are not really anything that I would call liturgically, �major changes.� The most important change is in the presbyteral prayers, which will add 7-10 minutes to the Liturgy, but which are vitally important.

I respectfully disagree. The praying aloud of selected presbyteral prayers and the elimination or condensation of litanies constitutes a major change. They constitute a major change in the flow of the Divine Liturgy and increase the focus on the priest. To use the litanies as an example, each had his own part. The deacon prayed the petitions. The people prayed �Lord, have mercy�. The priest prayed his prayer quietly and then concluded the litany with the doxology. When litanies are removed to make room for the priest to pray the people are denied their prayer of �Lord, have mercy.� This shift seems to be acknowledged in the new text with the replacement of the terms �Deacon�, �Priest� and �People� with the terms �Deacon�, �Celebrant� and �People�. This seems to be an adoption of the Western idea that only the priest celebrates the liturgy and the people merely respond to him. I had always believed that the priest and people celebrated the liturgy together.�

I guess that what I�m trying to say is, there is a bigger issue here to me than the addition and/or removal of litanies, or whether to add warm water to the chalice, or any of the other changes. I whole heartedly agree that these priestly prayers should be included in �the People�s� edition/pew book so that they certainly may be followed privately as the Liturgy progresses, but to mandate them prayed aloud ALL the time seems to void the very mystery that they set-forth, as well as break the natural flow of the Liturgy.

I commend Father David for coming here and speaking to some of the issues and concerns that people have raised and also for all that he has done for the Church as a whole. I cannot imagine that it has been easy. Anything that I have written is not a slur against him, and I will not be accused of whining, as I do as much as I can to promote our Church and spread the faith to others. I�ve written this over two days and thought much of what Father and others had said. In some ways I dread sending this as I do not want to be seen as provoking, but on the other hand, it�s my Church as much as it is Fr. David�s, Bishop Andrew�s, the Admin�s, or anyone else on this forum and I feel that as adults we can use a place like this to discuss such issues.

John