www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Parish Life & Evangelization Altar Girls

Dear Ghazar...

Old Calendarists are so labelled in America beacuse we are the minority. I suspect in the Countries which are both Old Calendar and Canonical, you are referred to as New Calendarists...It's all relative.

Peace, though! I am not one of those sour Old Calendarists that damns everyone who is New Calendar...that would be both silly and incorrect, as presuming to know what is in God's Mind...which I never would!

Gaudior, who promises not to be sour!

So, Gaudior, my brother in Christ,

Can we then presume then that you and Father Vasiley Vasilievich do not agree on the heretical 'status' of new calendar churches, and that you do not consider the existence of such, an 'OUTRAGE'!!!!!

Fondly,
Alice, who is ofcourse, teasing! :p

Alice, I visited an OCA church in my area, and they are really confusing. They follow the new calendar for much of the year, then revert to the old calendar for events near Easter. I'm sure Father Vasiley would promptly pronounce it to be a "hybrid-calendar outrage!"

If this thread turns into another "Calendar" discussion, it WILL be an Outrage!

Gaudior, who wishes to be considered an Old Calendar Orthodox who HAS been given rabies shots!

This was the pattern adopted by the EP in the '20s (as in 1920s). The fixed feasts are all on the new calendar while Pascha and everything dependent on it is on the old. The GOA, and Antiochians and all other Orthodox who are on the "new calendar" in this country follow this usage.

Gaudior

I don't know if you are old rite or new, that may make a difference. In the new rite, AFAIK, the making of a candle-bearer does not stand alone. It is contained in the modern services at the beginning of the setting apart of the reader. So, your questions above is answered in the negative and the statement is basically affirmed. Readers are not made taper bearers, once they are readers they are already taper-bearers. The making of a taper-bearer is not a separate service, it is merely a prayer with a laying-on-of-hand.

Tony

Tony,

That clarifies things in my mind.

Gaudior, who thanks you for your reply

Tony,

A correction: it is the Ordo not the Liturgikon that prescribes the deacon hold the diskos. It also prescribes that the priest hold the lention with the hand with which he holds the chalice. I am sure you remember this type of arrangement from the Uniontown Pilgrimages. It does not prescribe that the priest or deacon wipe the lips of every communicant so I assume it is expecting the deacon or priest to do it when necessary.

Fr. Deacon Lance

Dear Deacon Lance,

While the Rome books are very good there are some things which they contain that do not appear to have an Orthodox precedent. Of course, the Ruthenian books may not match modern Moscow or Kievan usage anyway for other reasons. This holding of the diskos I am not aware of in an Orthodox text.

Liturgical prescriptions exist outside of the Liturgikon itself but one has to ask the question are these truly prescriptive or descriptive? In the case of the Ordo for your jurisdiction it is no doubt prescriptive.

The modern Moscow books prescribe the wiping of the lips by the deacon. This supposes that the deacon is not distributing communion of course.

The use of the communion cloth is a practical one, it is to avoid/minimize any accident with the Sacred Species.

Tony

I agree. One can go back well into the past with sluzehbnyky where this is mentioned, not only in the Moscow service books but others, such as those printed at the Kiev Pecherska Lavra, etc.

If this is the received tradition, how is that consonant with the practice of vested women performing a task reserved for clergy in Holy Orders, even major orders? I await your answer.

Neil,

I find this interesting. I recall seeing, (and it might have been on a Greek program), the study of deaconesses in monasteries of Southern Europe.

The study I assumed, was to find out exactly how they were used in the ancient Orthodox tradition.

Zenobia

I don't know. It is a good question. How can boys be performing the role of something reserved to those in major orders? I can't answer that except to point out that they do not do everything reserved to those in major orders. In other words, some things that the service books direct the deacon to do (for instance the bringing and holding of the censer at the prothesis, or the holding of the communion cloth) lay people or servers regularly do. So they are in effect deputized out of necessity.

If it is that boys can later be ordained to major orders so in a way we are looking ahead, well OK. The women can become nuns and do the same thing in their monastery.

Tony

Three quick points:

As for Gaudior's point about altar boys should be tonsured, in most of the GOA parishes in my area, the majority of altar boys have indeed been tonsured taper-bearers, and many of the men on the kliros have been tonsured readers (basically the same service).

As for a lot of the talk on the issue of whether women should go behind the altar, I find the attitude of many posters to be quite Protestant--where is that in the [canons] [Bible]? Show me the canon! I think the fact it is a tradition that until quite recently was universal in the Church for as far back as anyone can remember should be a huge argument in its favor. If anything, the burden of proof is on those seeking to change the tradition, not those maintaining. Innocent until proven guilty, if you will.

Finally, as to Ghazar's surprise over the calendar, the Russian Church, the Georgian Church, the Jerusalem Church, the Serbian Church, ROCOR, many (though probably a minority) of the OCA, and the vast majority if not all of Mt. Athos are Old Calendar (not an exhaustive list).

Justin

I don't believe that Coptic Deaconesses carrry out liturgical functions. See:
http://www.sc.edu/uscpress/1995/3034.html
which describes thier role and is a great book to boot!

Dear Friends,

Despite what Jbosl says, my point wasn't Protestant at all. The Protestants go by "Scripture Alone." I didn't ask "where does it says this in Scripture." I rather appealed to a valid element of Tradition, i.e. Church Canons. Not only this, but if he read the thread, he would've understood why I asked the question in the first place. The primary argument put forward against using girls in any way in Church Services was that "the Canons forbid them." Therefore I simply asked to see these Canons. And that, my friend, is NOT Protestant. I don't apprecitate your labling me in this way.

As for what I said about "Old Calendarist" my point is still valid. The mere fact that some Orthodox are given a special title in the this country if they go by the Old Calendar, indicates they are an exception, not the rule. This is not my fault that this is the standard practice. If I were an Old Calendarist, I would simply point this out to others without making a big stink over it. Btw, the Armenian Church simply uses the Calendar of the nation or region they reside in. Hence in the Holy Land they follow the Old Calendar with the other Orthodox Churches of that region.