www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy History of the RDL

The topic is obviously a very, very volatile one and is polarizing people. Maybe this has already been done, if so, it would be a good idea to re-cap for us late comers.

Could someone please give us a time line of the RDL? I remember reading in the bulletin about how it was approved by the Holy See and is being implemented, etc. But exactly how did the process work? I have read in one thread about who was consulted on the music--which cantors, when, etc. I have also read in other threads about translations and gender neutral changes. Is there a way to succintly re-cap the events? for instance--exactly WHAT was appproved by the Holy See? As I recall, that was a few years ago. If it was the liturgy that is in the books, why was it not implemented years ago? If the Holy See approved the idea, who said there needs to be a revision? Who set the process in motion? Who decided who was on the commission?

Again, maybe I'm asking too much, but there are lots of people who have not been following the posts since last fall or even before. In one thread there were references to exact example of bad accents and such. And then someone mentioned that examples were given last fall. It is a bit confusing. I'm suggesting it as a new thread because it combines lots of other threads. Clear, concise and conversational. Please--no big academic or theological or musical words and concepts. I teach at the College level but there are lots of new words and concepts that I have never heard of. Can you imagine how the ordinary person feels?

A timeline of the process, who did what, when they did it, how it was done, etc. If it's too much to ask, feel free to say so.

Thanks

Tim

It's been over 24 hours since I posted this message. If this were a Warner Brothers cartoon, we'd be hearing crickets chirping.....

Tim

Tim,

My reading is that the history of the RDL's development is quite opaque. You might be able to piece together a story from the information at Fr. David Petras's website, plus going back to the beginning of this RDL forum and reading forward.

Veterans of the debates may know of sources that you don't have to put together yourself.

Good luck!

May I be so bold as to suggest reading my book on the subject?

Fr. Serge

As a matter of fact, I am. And I'm not just skimming it or "jumping to the conclusion" to make a very bad pun. I'm reading the entire thing, including all the really interesting bits at the bottom! I was just looking for something to help shed light for myself and for some of the other people who don't have the background in theology or music. I can read music to a bit, but don't understand some of the "musical" points some of the posters made. And I'm sure there are lots more people like me out there. It might not be possible to summarize such a big topic, especially when it is so polarizing. But as I said in my original post, someone will say something two or three days ago and then someone else says that was covered already (but never said exactly when it was covered) and then someone finally says
"enough already, we went into that last fall." And there just seem so many unanswered questions that should be very easy to answer.

Thanks. I'll let you know when I finish your book on the subject.

Tim

Sorry not to have mentioned Father Serge's book--I'm waiting for Stauropegion Press to send me a hard copy.

Note also that Patronage of the Mother of God's website has much information on the RDL, including notes and commentary on its development:

http://www.patronagechurch.com/Liturgy_Study/study_the_chrysostom_divine_liturgy.htm

If I may, a repost:

Dear Tim,

My thanks to you - and it's always a pleasure to run across someone who enjoys "the fine art of the footnote"!

Fr. Serge

From a discussion following the presentation of a paper entitled A Survey of the Liturgical Translations of the Byzantine Catholic Metropolia by Fr. David Petras at the �International Symposium on English Translations of Byzantine Liturgical Texts�, held in Stamford, Connecticut, 17-20 June 1998:

(All emphasis mine.)

Am I the only one who is confused?



Father David, you were on the Commission. How can you not know its opinions?



Some questions answered, but even more raised...

_____
Господи Ісусе Хрїсте, Сыне Божїи, помилуй мя грѣшнаго.

Consider this:


And consider this:


(Fr. Taft in "Eastern Presuppositions" and Western Liturgical Renewal")


And put these two together and the problem as analyzed by Cardinal Ratzinger becomes evident:


(Cardinal Ratzinger, 2004)

What was needed in this equation to prevent the "unholy twins" of historicism and pastoralism from distorting the liturgy was the Bishops, listening to the concerns of the faithful, to act as the Church's teachers and guardians of the faith so that the legitimate historical insights and pastoral concerns could be brought together in authentic restoration of the liturgy.

As Cardinal Ratzinger wrote:

Maybe it's just me, but when I read things like the last quote from then Cardinal Ratizinger--"A greater independence on the part of the pastors would have been desirable" it reminds me of the "collegiality" part of Vatican II that was emphasized so much. Less top down beaurocracy and desision making, more communication within dioceses (eparchies) and more communication among dioceses (eparchies.) It was basically--let's get opinions from people other than experts, "who should not have the last word."

These ideas were enthusiastically endorsed and pursued by many, many Bishops. Including Karol Wojty?a and Joseph Ratzinger. Yet when put into a postition where they could promote ecumenism and collegiality as well as actually listening to pastors and laity, they didn't. Especially Pope John Paul II. Maybe things look different when you're the point man. But they both talked the talk, but didn't walk the walk. Just my opinion. Some think Pople John Paul II too liberal, others too conservative. It's all in the perspective, I guess.

Tim

How does Patronage Church in Baltimore get away with posting to its website all the material which is non-complimentary to the RDL? One would think that the steamroller of ecclesiastical administration would rather quickly quash those who would dare be so bold...

This has been going around my head, in the last couple of weeks, as I have heard our cantor struggling with all this awful new music.

Father David said that the Council of Hierarchs felt that not much of the music should be changed (that was in 1988).

I wonder what changed since then, to make the Council of Hierarchs change their minds, and now decided that we had to change all the music ('restore' it, or 'destroy' it, or whatever, it is all changed)?

Two important things happened of course, Metropolitan Judson died, and he was a great supporter of our musical tradition. And J. Michael Thompson was hired to take charge of the music.

Somehow, somewhere, the fact that we 'were accustomed' to singing much of the Liturgy by memory, was no longer to be taken into consideration, and our feelings were no longer thought to be important.

That was a sad day. But the message is loud and clear. Somebody's idea of one interpretation of the music, was more important than our feelings about the matter. A very sad day, and somebody someday will have to own up to that. Metropolitan Judson never would have stood for it, that's for sure.

Nick

My pastor said that the original plan from Archbishop Procyk was to reprint the altar Liturgicon (the red one) and fix the mistakes. And that there only a handful of mistakes that needed to be fixed. He said that Bishop Kuzma was the first head of the liturgical committee and didn�t really oversee it because of health problems. So the original plan at reprinting with fixes was ditched and Father Petras pushed through all the reforms he wanted. As long as the changes don't make us look too Orthodox Bishop Pataki supports them.

My pastor also said that the music was not supposed to be changed. That all changed when Father Petro got Archbishop Procyk to hire Thompson to teach at the seminary and then the Archbishop died. As soon as Archbishop Procyk was buried Thompson�s role went from helping out at the cantor school (the one at the seminary) to being in charge of rewriting the music and all the other cantors who didn't like Thompson's music were forced out. No one saw the new music before the new books showed up. No one seems to care that the music is lousy.

We are not using the new music. We are using the new words. My pastor got a copy of the new text and put that in the pews. So we are singing the new words with the old music. For the tropars the people don�t have them yet. We are pasting in corrections into a copy of the new pew book and will duplicate them each Sunday to kind of match the handouts we used to have.

Even one of the priests on the commission for Passaic knows the whole thing is a farce. He said that we should learn the new music even though it is pretty bad because it doesn�t matter that its bad but because Bishop Andrew mandated it.

Thank you for adding a few more pieces to the puzzle.