www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West universal rite?

I think we must understand three different entities here (speaking as a linguistics/anthropologist guy).

The first is the "spiritual/philosophical/theological" content. This is expressed in the primary texts, i.e., the Scripture and the liturgical texts.

The second is the "lived reality" of the organically developed practitioners of the content. For us, it is the Constantinopolitan community, whether Greek, Russian, Ukrainians, etc.

The third is the "newbies", whether descendants of the second "practitioner" group or total neophytes.

The question is: what of the second group needs to be transmitted to the third? I.e., how do "Americans" live out the "content" while retaining their connectivity with the second group?

For Byzantine Christians, there is still a greater or lesser connection with the "old country" wherever that may be. For Western American Christians, there is still a connection, but perforce of the passing of generations, the connection is most often tenuous at best.

Do we seriously expect that Irish-Americans will maintain their connection with a currently non-existent "Ireland" that disappeared more than a century ago? (They tried this in the 20's, 30's and 40's with "golden age" of memories of Ireland that were intent on recalling the "wonderful" old country that in reality was so bad that it drove the people to immigrate. Mother McRee, O Danny Boy, etc. EVERY immigrant group romanticizes the old country. The reality was quite different, otherwise they never would have left.

So, for the offspring(s) of the immigrants, there is a melancholy for the "old country", but in reality they live where they live. And, as such living folk, they have to exercise their faith in the reality where they live. For American Roman Catholics, the reality is America. The land of Budweiser, Marlboros, NFL and four-by-fours (and SUVs). Yeah, they may say "I'm Irish", but the reality is: they'd DIE if they had to live there.

So, liturgically, since the prayer/liturgical life of the people has got to be part of where they live culturally, the liturgics has got to be American. Does this mean that American Christians have to settle for "Hallmark" Christianity? Definitely not. It is up to the collective wisdom of the Church to determine how the Phase 1 (the "content") stuff is both interpreted and presented. While we can have (German) Christmas trees in the church at Christmas, and (Italian) creches, and (Irish) candles, and (Polish) Oblatky, we don't find Santa Claus except in his Christian incarnation as Saint Nicholas.

As Christians, we can baptize some things as we see fit. Other things we just pass over as either puerile, inappropriate, or just plain stupid. It's our call.

But we must ever be vigilant to make sure that what we admit into the "ecclesial" community is appropriate. Does this mean that Black Catholic parishes should incorporate Kwanzaa? Maybe. I'm not black, so I can't say. But it needs to be in harmony with the Step 1 "content" from the scriptures and the other writings.

It is clearly a puzzle; but we must be aware of the fact that we HAVE to be prepared to move on to newer models. If we don't do this, we will be a cute museum community like the Shakers. No members, but a 'quaint' bit of history.

Let's pray for all our Christian brethren as we seek to accommodate ourselves and our communities in the 21st century.

Blessings!
Does this

"It seems to me that you and other posters are advocating one ethinic/social group = one rite as ideal"

I think it's actually a little more nuanced than that ... Russians, Greeks, and Arabs, for example, share the same rite, but not a common ethnicity or social group in any meaningful sense. However, we must remember the converse of this ... namely that the Byzantine rite has, itself, become a part of Greek, Russian and (at least some) Arab Christian culture -- it has *inculturated* itself into these cultures through a process that Dr. John describes in his note (more below).

"Can't two people from completely different ethnic/social backgrounds find a spiritual home in the same church?"

Yes, but not every church in America bears the same cultural stamp.

I still think that history offers valuable clues for approaching this problem. Historically, the Church in the East expanded by trying to inculturate as much as possible while still maintaining what Dr. John refers to as category 1. This process was difficult, and was not perfect, but it seems to have worked reasonably well in transmitting the essence of the Byzantine religious system in a local idiom. Trying to plant Catholic or Orthodox churches in the United States is rather more complicated because the local culture is already Christian, and is deeply imbued with non-Catholic, non-Orthodox Christian ideas and sentiments. The underlying culture here is not SUVs and Marlboro Man, but rather a deep-seated Protestant religious sensibility. There has therefore been a lot of confusion/reluctance to adapt this or that element of that Protestant religious culture into the lives of the Catholic and Orthodox churches because of fears that the Protestant religious mindset could be imported together with that culture.

The reaction to this problem, while initially similar, has in recent decades differed for Catholics and Orthodox. For many decades, the Latin Catholics resisted assimilation. As the faithful of the church itself became more assimilated into American culture, however, there was less interest in maintaining an 'unassimilated' religious culture -- and when the possibility arose to alter the rite to fit American culture, it was, in many places, used that way. It has always impressed me how the Latin rite in Catholic Europe, for example, is rather different, in *feel*, than it is in North America, even though the texts and rubrics are formally the same. The *flexibility* which was baked into the Novus Ordo (and which some traditional Catholics do not like) has in fact resulted in quite a bit of local variation in practice, and here in North America has allowed a more culturally assimilated version of the Mass to develop and come into use. The debate rages, however, about whether this or that practice is a "protestantisation" -- I don't think there should be much debate, however, about the fact that the North American liturgy, as celebrated in most places, is an act of assimilation to a culture that has not been shaped by Catholicism.

The Orthodox Churches have also resisted assimilation, to a certain degree, even though much of their memberships are now fully assimilated Americans. In some cases, it is a question of what one considers "assimilation". Many Greek parishes have continued the use of liturgical Greek, while installing pews -- some would refer to the latter as an assimilation. Many former Russian or Slav parishes still lack pews but serve the liturgy in English -- some would call the latter an assimilation. Some parishes have both pews and English -- and some would say that these are even more assimilated. You have to realize that there is, in Orthodoxy at least, an inherenly conservative tendency that *can* see heresy lurking behind every single change in practice -- however minor. Therefore, the tendency in Orthodoxy is for the changes to be relatively minor (certainly when compared with what has happened in the Latin Catholic church in recent decades). The result has been mixed. On the one hand, many of the assimilated descendants of immigrants are no longer Orthodox, or are only nominally so -- they do not desire to be participants in a church whose religious culture and life are so different from the surrounding culture in which they have assimilated themselves. On the other hand, the precise sense of continuity with the past and with a culture that is not American has been a source of much attractiveness for many contemporary North American converts to Orthodoxy -- at least some of whom are more comfortable in Orthodoxy than in what they perceive as North American churches that are too assimilated to what they perceive as an increasingly secular, non-Christian society.

What does this have to do with transferability of rite and culture? Well, I think it's a truism that each rite must inculturate itself locally if it is to thrive in that local culture. In North America, that means inculturating itself into a local culture that is, itself, muticultural and diverse. Both the Byzantine rite and the Latin rite have experience with inculturation -- using different models -- and each has experienced the benefits and detriments of its respective model. The real issue, then, is implementation -- what, in the local culture, is compatible with Dr. John's category one, and what is not -- what can be adopted and what can't -- but also, what *should* be adopted (ie, there are things that might not be incompatible with category one, but which are nevertheless incomaptible with the religious culture that is a part of every church). That's the $64 million question. The Latin Church, thanks to the liturgical reform, has made some trial and error in this area, and so we know where some of the pitfalls are. Orthodoxy, in some circles, is starting to move in this direction, but much work remains to be done.

But the most simple answer to your question is that, yes, different cultural groups can exist within one rite. The issue, however, is that since each rite brings with it its own cultural aspects (no rite can be divorced from its cultural background), the real problem in NA is determining what, in NA culture, is okay in that it is neither violative of the 'content' of the faith (as perceived differently by Orthodox and Catholics) nor subversive to the core culture that underlies the rite (whether Latin or Byzantine). In the proetestant-based, multicultural society of NA, this is very, very tough, and very easy to get wrong -- but it must be done, carefully, if the church is to thrive here while still remaining the church.

Brendan

Dear Benedictine,

Great to have you here - I am a Benedictine Oblate of the Eastern Rite.

Yes, models of diversity in unity are things that are always developing as we can never have the last word on them as pastoral responses to the needs of the people of God.

The Roman Rite/Byzantine Rite models are very different in this respect.

I've come across Jesuits who are in the process of creating a First Nations Rite, with sweet-grass smoking, sweat-houses and buck-skin priestly robes. They hold an eagle feather during the Canon of the Mass. I've also seen a Hawaiian Mass.

In these cases, you would have had to have reminded me that I was attending a Roman Rite Mass. The fact that all this cultural diversity is under the one Latin jurisdiction is good, but the traditions are quite far apart and I don't think too many Latin Catholics that I know would want to attend them.

The Byzantine and Oriental Churches, for all their Particularity and jurisdictions, have preserved a remarkable liturgical harmony and we recognize our Eastern Apostolic heritage in each other.

It was as a result of a history of persecution by religious and cultural enemies that the Eastern Churches tended to become solidified into what some (usually American)analysts call "ethnic Churches" as if Americanized parishes did not express a cultural orientation as well.

As a Byzantine Christian, I have always wondered why the Roman Church felt it necessary to dominate the autonomy and Rites of other Western Churches, such as the Mozarabic and Celtic as two examples. Byzantine Christianity is also guilty of this with respect to the Oriental Churches and traditions.

So I see the pre-Vatican II Latin Church as being ritually monolithic in the extreme, and the post-VAtican II Church as granting, in liturgical terms, everything to everyone, save and except for the central control it continues to exercise over the local Western Churches including the issue of Beatification and others.

I say this not because I am anti-Latin. (As a Ukrainian Catholic, I am already, many would say, "Latinized").

I take much from the Western heritage and claim it as my own, including the Rule of St Benedict.

I guess I am looking at this through Eastern eyes, but I think the spirit of Vatican II would support a more collegial view of Particular Churches, Western and Eastern, in communion with each other, as opposed to one Patriarchate whose Rite and traditions are open to local adaptation "within reason."

I see no problem with an Hispanic or African-American Particular Church within Roman Catholicism, however it is expressed in jurisdictional terms.

For them and for others like certain Byzantine Churches, the problem is, rather, the tension of existing under "mainstream" ecclesial structures that pretend to treat everyone equally, but where, in reality, mainstream ritual and cultural dominance is practiced.

Pax et bonum,

Alex

The real question, as both Brendan and Alex have pointed out, is: "what do we do" that is in harmony with the Phase 1 "content", i.e, in line with the Scriptures and the fundamental liturgical texts (and the attendant theologies) but is also in greater or lesser harmony with the "ancestors' practices" and also harmonious with our contemporary culture.

While I don't advoate screwing around with the basic liturgical texts or the calendar, I do think that we can push and pull around a bit to make things fit our contemporary lives. (I am still wondering why we have to schedule liturgy services in the a.m. when at least half the people in the parish have 9 to 5 office jobs and no longer work their farms at their own schedules? What is so sacred about 9 or 10 am? Isn't a 7 pm or 7:30 pm service more amenable to the needs of working people?) This is preserving the Level 2 elements (i.e., doing what we did in the old country) without a real regard for the Level 3 (i.e., contemporary) needs. It strikes me as kind of anomalous to get a 'dispensation' here in the U.S. for Thanksgiving when it falls within Philip's Fast. Thanksgiving is a really important day. Even the McDonalds and drug stores are closed!)

The basic theology should remain the same; so should the liturgies and the other services. But we need to tell ourselves that we can and should make emendations to schedules and calendars, and to feast/fast cycles, and to the ways that we integrate the roles of men, women and children in the community, and in the ways that we do 'outreach' to others than "us", and ways that we deal with our Roman Catholic fellow-communicants who are NOT members of OUR Church, and with our Orthodox brethren (who ARE part of our church family) [and dump the 'oldcountry' Level/Phase 2 antipathy stuff because it's irrelevant in this Protestant America/Agnostic America/confused America], and the ways that we treat our priests and bishops and the whole ecclesiastical structure ('old country had "classes" i.e., peasants vs. those who could read; America: doing its damndest to be "all the citizens are equal" - don't give us the "Lord Bishop" stuff and hang our salvation on total unquestioning obedience).

We must certainly hold to the Scriptures and the basic texts of the liturgies. We must certainly look to our ancestors in the faith to guide our contemporary lives. But we must NOT be afraid to live our lives as we need to in the context of the communities where we live. Apropos the Jesuits doing Native American liturgics and Hawai'ian liturgies, I think it's a good thing; but: it has to be a "real" community celebration and not just theater. Too many folks confuse true liturgical prayer and "staging". Just because one is doing something in terms of the "ancient" or "venerable" form, then it's OK, IF and ONLY IF it corresponds to the living reality of the community. But to do it for the preservation of some historical form is not legitimate; it's got to speak to the needs of the community.

God love our priests in their efforts to be really priestly and servants of the people.

Blessings!