I think Alex hit on an important axiom of Byzantine Biblical-Liturgical logic, an axiom that demonstrates how the Bible and Liturgy are connected. I will quote what Alex stated on another thread:

“THE EASTERN CHURCH, BY NATURE, PREFERS SCRIPTURAL AND PATRISTIC SOURCES FOR ITS FEASTS.”

I believe that if anyone wishes to see with Byzantine Eyes, one should consider this axiom. Let me explain why this can help: Many have submitted litmus tests to Byzantine Catholics challenging their "Catholicism' with questions about us accepting the Latin dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and Assumption. Much ink has been spilled over this issue when maybe it was all un-necessary if we considered the above axiom.

Consider how despite the proclamation of such Marian dogmas the Byzantine Catholics still maintained the more Scripture-based feasts of the St. Anne's Conception and the Falling Asleep of the Theotokos. Both, I repeat both, are not even documented in our canonical Gospels! This doesn't mean that Byzantine Catholics reject such dogmas or consider them heresy; it just means that our Church prefers to preserve such feasts within a biblical context, albeit non-canonical ones(!), and how it relates to salvation and not primarily as ontologies of Mary's person.

May I make another observation? The two Marian dogmas mentioned above deal with events that are recorded in sources that are not in our current New Testament besides being ontologies of Mary's person. Byzantines know Mary as Theotokos and Ever-Virgin, the Mother of God. With only canonical sources to go on, that is WHO she is. It does us no one any good to challenge or debate over these sort of issues if one fails to see through Byzantine Eyes.

Do you see differently?


Cantor Joe Thur
Deacon-student

[ 04-05-2002: Message edited by: J Thur ]

I totally agree--
The basis for our liturgical services has already been established, and, as stated, they are biblically-based. When "outside" sources: novenas, etc., are brought into our community/parish services, they "feel" out-of-place--and they are--because they do not flow with what has been established and practiced throughout our many years of Tradition. Pastors who add novenas to our services confuse parishioners with comments like: "Oh, this has been accepted by the Pope for the Universal Church." And, as a result, our parish services become a patchwork of different types of additions to our liturgical proceedings!
We should stay with what we have, lop off what has been attached, and leave these extraneous devotions to be practiced by individuals who are so inclined to practice them.

Dear Cantor Joe,

Just a note to thank you for your kind words about my words!

You are the first scriptural teacher I've come across who has made direct reference to the Gospel of Nicodemus and the other noncanonical scriptures that have had such a profound influence in the life of our Apostolic Church.

Your approach is really what true Orthodoxy is all about.

To think with the mind of the scriptures is to obey the Mind of God and truly experience His inspiration in our lives.

I honestly hope you do become a Priest. We up here will take you any time!!

Alex

"Pastors who add novenas to our services confuse parishioners..."


Absolutely. But again, this doesn't mean that novenas are bad. What is worrisome is when the liturgical services we DO have are totally ignored, not taught, or even mentioned, especially when they are "in the books." The wealth of our liturgies are valueless if they remain closed books in a closet.

I never learned so much about my faith until my current pastor introduced everything form that treasure chest of tradition. I began to understand the proverbial wisdom in learning the faith via the liturgy; they didn't mean just the Divine Liturgy or listening to sermons, but the tomes of theological instruction one can benefit from simply attending our liturgies.

We are well-versed (maybe not) in the meaning of the "rock" in the NT, but do we know what our Pentectostarion means by it? We are well-versed (maybe not) in the meaning of the Immaculate Conception dogma, but do we know how our Church celebrates the Feast of St. Anne's Conception? We are well-versed in being believers of the Pope, but do we actually read what he writes and teaches and instructs? We are good at finding all the answers in the CCC, but have we ever turned a page or sang a sticheron from the Festal Menaion? the Lenten Triodion? the Pentecostarion? the Bible? We are experts in proving how these "inorganic" traditions are our history and right, but become mute or unintelligible in our lexicon of "organic" faith traditions. It is not what is said, but what is NOT said that tells me more about one's character.

We bent a bar on the cross to prove a point. We dressed up like people from other churches to prove a point. We slapped our logo on the theologies of other valid church traditions to prove a point. We closed the texts of our ancient and venerable liturgies and stichera to prove another point ... that we are excellent in killing our "melody of faith." We didn't swap or exchange Marian devotions with another church; we simply dumped our equally valid services like we were performing some sort of infanticide. All in all we DID prove a point: we were irresponsible, neglectful, and acted stupidly. It is not so much as what we borrowed from others but what we tossed out. Our actions were a sad commentary on a people who knew how to throw out the baby with the bathwater. We killed our own life.

Let the "melody of faith" be sung!


Cantor Joe Thur

Dear Cantor Joe,

Bravo! Bravo!!

One of the most important posts ever!

Alex

Dittos!!
Excellent post!
If we are to be true to ourselves, then we must practice what we have been given!

I'm sorry if I went on what may seem to be a tirade, but I couldn't help it. I remember once discussing a particular author with a friend and he got into a hissy-fit about what the author promotes. After some time discussing the various points that made him upset, I realized that this person NEVER read anything the author wrote. It was all hearsay and a heavily biased opinion. It wasn't a true or serious discussion; it was a waste of time. This is why it is bothersome to engage in senseless and fruitless debate (read: polemics) when there is a total failure to understand the other's system of theology.

How can we come to understand what it means to see with Byzantine eyes if we never open them? What is so wrong with opening our own liturgical books instead of someone else's for a change? The Scriptures are proclaimed and the Psalms are sung throughout our liturgies. What a wonderful opportunity to learn the Mind of the Church simply by showing up for liturgy and offering our praises to God.

There are many studies out there that are written about the 'Bible in the Liturgy' and the 'Liturgy in the Bible.' They are a twosome. Biblical studies have advanced greatly when it was realized that the Scriptures were truly inter-connected with Liturgy. It is no wonder why many Eastern Christian theologians and bishops speak of only ONE Source of Tradition instead of arbitrarily divorcing Scripture from Tradition and then further dividing Tradition into 'T'radition and 't'radition. We love to compartmentalize to make it easier to comprehend, but then the beauty disappears. There is a true beauty in our liturgies and in how they amplify the Scriptures. I know no other Church that loves Scripture so much as to compose its main Liturgical Service with at least 200 Bible verses (Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom); and that doesn't even include the Bible readings!

I mentioned once how my late paternal Baba knew her scripture even though she never learned how to read. How did she manage to do this? Simply by attending our Church services. Is it no wonder why many in our Church opt for in-organic liturgical services and theologies from other traditions? When one doesn't know or celebrate our own 'lex orandi' one will never learn to speak of our 'lex credendi.' Our services not only proclaim the Gospels and the entire Bible but also instruct us in theology, a truer theology, one of prayer-theology and not simply text-book academics.

I can speak only for myself: I grew up in what was the most Latinized parish in our eparchy. How did I come to appreciate our Byzantine faith? Simply, by attending our liturgies, but mostly by cantoring them. When I am confused or fail to understand a particular point in theology or teaching I turn to our prayer books first to see what our Church celebrates; they've become a Second Bible. This is true when we realize the Alexian Axiom that, “THE EASTERN CHURCH, BY NATURE, PREFERS SCRIPTURAL AND PATRISTIC SOURCES FOR ITS FEASTS.”

Cantor Joe Thur
Deacon-student

[ 04-06-2002: Message edited by: J Thur ]

Mr. Thur,

That is one of the many things I love about this Church. The way it celebrates it's Feast Days.For example, the feasts of the Theotokos celebrates her but doesn't detract from the Eucharist.There is always such a balance. I see the Molebens & Akathists as this Church's Novenas & Litanies if you will.Are they something to be promoted as a private devotion? Also if lay people wanted to recite them in Church is it necessary for the Priest to be present or Cantor?
When I was young the statue of the Blessed Mother travelled through out our neighborhood. People would gather at each others houses(mostly women with kids in tow)recite the rosary and then have dessert afterwards and the kids would go play outside. Is that something that can be done with the Icon for Vocations and the Moleben that accompanies it? Vocations are something we desperately need to promote in our Church.

And Alex quit trying to steal our people.If he going to be a Priest it will be in our Church.

Still working on 20/20 Byzantine vision.


Nicky's Baba

[ 04-06-2002: Message edited by: Nicky's Baba ]

J Thur,

I think to be fair to anyones religion or rite or denomination (if your Protestant) you have to first view their expression of their religion/rite/denomination and theology through their eyes. Otherwise you are simply being unfair in your *assessment* of *them*.

I find Protestants do this all the time to Buddhism and Islam and Catholicism, and I find myself defending those two other religions from the deformity the Protestants turn Buddhist and Islamic theology into. Not that I'm an expert on my faith or any other, but I know enough to know that simply saying that the Buddhist worship statutes and don't believe we are here is a gross over simplification of their theology.

And not to bring up bad past issues, but in a recent thread a Orthodox member charged that the Byzantine Catholics relation to the Pope is the same as the Latin Catholics. This was unfair to me because it was a gross over simplification of the relation of the BC to the Papacy. While both our relations are similar or exact in some ways, overall the BC relation is very much different than that of us Latin Pappist to the Pope of Rome. One has to view the relation of the Papal chair to the BC through the eyes of the Byzantine Catholic to be fair to ones assessment of that relation.

"I think to be fair to anyones religion or rite or denomination (if your Protestant) you have to first view their expression of their religion/rite/denomination and theology through their eyes. Otherwise you are simply being unfair in your *assessment* of *them*."


Maximus,

You are correct. Byzantine Catholicism has the extra burden of those within the community who wish not to learn their own Church's expression of theology for various reasons. Would that problem have been avoided if we simply celebrated our own liturgies and sung our own hymns rather than shopping for other expressions? It is not so much the lack of understanding of Eastern Catholicism 'outside' the fold, but the lack of understanding of Eastern Catholicism 'inside' the fold. We spend too much time trying to convert the converted; preaching too much to an uncooperative choir. How did this all happen? It began when we severed ourselves from the sources and celebrations of our faith.

Joe

Cantor Joe,
!Cristo ha resucitado!
Christos Anesti!
Christ is risen!

"Let the melody of faith be sung!"

Yes to all you have posted! I remember when some one asked our pastor about "Byzantine Catechism books", he replied "All the theology you will need to know is contained in the Liturgical services, listen to and meditate upon the prayers and hymns." We need to know the treasure of faith contained in the Triodion, Pentecostarion, Menaion, etc.

Let the melody of faith be sung and let it be heard!

John the always-burnt (when temps are over 100)

Cantor Joe-

This is a most lovely post. You are well spoken and 100 percent correct. If the future of our church is in the hands of the many Byzantines on this forum, then we will have a most glorious future.

For over a year, my spiritual father has been stressing that the theology is in the prayers of the Church. When I came to him, I wanted Eastern Catholic Catechism 101 and his answer was to come to church.

Tonight was the Vespers of St. Thomas Sunday. The imagery was beautiful. The hand that goes into the side of Christ . . . expecting that as grass is burned in the fire . . .

Beautiful and telling. And as my Abouna tells me, next year we do it all over again to reinforce the message. So if you did'nt get it this time, there is always next year.

Now in this regard I am also taught that Liturgy is work, not a "feel good" session. Liturgia, literally the work of the people. A reason why every effort to remove pews from our church should be made. To teach our people to stand before the Awesome and all knowing God with confidence and without condemnation and pray to Him, give glory to Him, to beseech Him, and to worship Him.

Amin!
Ality

Thank you for this discussion.

"Now in this regard I am also taught that Liturgy is work, not a "feel good" session. Liturgia, literally the work of the people."


Ality,

Etymologically speaking, "Liturgy" is actually a compound word meaning:

'laos' (people) + 'ergon' (work) = work of the people

Though originally meaning public works or state projects, now in the Church it means the work of the people together as a community worshipping God.

As a cantor I have found one of the best ways the people can participate doing a common work: singing the melody of faith. At vespers, our clergy can 'take a break' and pray for a change during the stichera at Psalm 140 ... while the cantors and schola can get exhausted. This is the coolest thing: the faith is taught by the people (singing) to the people as a form of catechesis. Let me quote Fr. Taft:

"... the office of the Church's own school of prayer, a novitiate in which she teaches her age-old ways of how to glorify God in Christ as Church, together as one body, in union with and after the example of her head. No other form of prayer is so rooted in the mysteries of salvation history as they are unfolded day by day in the Church's annual cycle. Through this constant diet of Scripture not only does God speak his Word to us, not only do we contemplate over and over again the central mysteries of salvation, but our own lives are gradually attuned to this rhythym, and we meditate again and again on this history of Israel, recapitulated in Jesus, that is also the saga of our own spiritual odyssey. The march of Israel across the horizon of history is a metaphor for the spiritual pilgrimage of us all." (Taft, Robert F. "The Church's School of Prayer." In 'The Liturgy of the Hours East and West.' p. 369)

Taft goes on to make a point I tried to bring out above:

"This gives balance and objective comprehensiveness to the Church's prayer that is a sure remedy for the one-sided excess and exaggerations of a subjective devotionalism that puts all its emphasis on only those aspects of the life of prayer that happen to have personal appeal to the individual at some given moment, often for less than ideal reasons." (Ibid.)

And again:

"... prayer according to the common offices of the Church is an unending school of prayer that constantly pulls us out of whatever bourgeois sentimentalism and inverted egoism there may be in our "private" devotions, and draws us inexhorably in to the objective spiritual values of a life lived according to the mystery that is Christ." (Ibid.)

Need I say more?

Fr. Taft uses a few 'blunt' terms in his assessment of those who cannot or will not grasp the beauty of that school of prayer:

subjective devotionalism

bourgeois sentimentalism

inverted egoism

This defines it all, no? Words like 'subjective,' 'sentimentalism,' and 'egoism' are terms that refer to ourselves, not God. The former Latinizations of the past (and still happening in some areas today) are actually caterings to people's selfish needs. I've seen it all. There is no desire to learn our beautiful and equally valid expression of faith with these people, including those who pander to those selfish needs. There is no desire to attend the school of prayer, to learn the melody of faith, or to pass it down to the next generation. We have to call it for what it is. It is a rejection of God just as contemporary music and movies can say a whole lot about nothing, especially as serving as distractions to our one goal: theosis. It is sad when I hear folks abhor the thought of doing our own Vespers and Matins; when the axe of minimalism cuts out our stichera or psalmody (one verse please!); when those responsible will absolutely refuse to admit we even have a 'school of prayer.' How can this happen? I call it Liturgical Infanticide.

Let me add one more quote from Fr. Taft with the Scriptures in mind:

"... to profit from the hours as a true spirituality, a school of prayer, one must be a person who prays and whose life is penetrated with the Scriptures. The offices of the Church can be lived fully only by one whose life is permeated by such a 'lectio divina' of the Bible. Contemporary biblical scholarship is rightly interested in the 'Sitz im Leben' on what is recounted in the biblical text. But in the life of the Church there is also a 'Sitz im Gottesdient,' and in the spiritual life there is a 'Sitz im meimem Leben.'

Personally, my biblical studies outside of the deacon-program is very heavyily focused in the 'Sitz im Leben.' That Scripture comes alive when it becomes our melody of faith at liturgy (the work of the people). It is the people's book, not just the privelege of academic scholars tooting their theories and hypotheses. Just take a look at the following web page to see how far advanced biblical scholarship got in their theorizing:

http://www.mindspring.com/~scarlson/synopt/

Everything is now clear as mud thanks to the Church of Academia. Do you want to get published? Think up another Synoptic Theory derivative.


"We need to know the treasure of faith contained in the Triodion, Pentecostarion, Menaion, etc."

Si! There is so much to learn. It will keep us from the anals of un-enlightened theories.


Cantor Joe Thur
Deacon-student

[ 04-07-2002: Message edited by: J Thur ]

This has definitely been a rewarding ncounter.
I have never gone to this section of the post before.

I am begining as a seminarian in August at Holy Spirit Ukr. Cath. seminary in Ottawa.

I look forward to emersing myself in a daily retinue of prayer (public) and learing of the faith.

Christ is Risen!
Ality

Dear Cantor Joe,

Would you please tell Nicky's Baba that I'm not trying to steal you? (Babtsiu, you can read the Akathists as a private devotion - the Eastern Church prescribes an evening Rule of three Canons and two Akathists and more daily for everyone.)

And if I were, what's wrong with that? Such attempted "theft" would be a blessing to our Church up here and I'm sure that St Dismas, the Good Thief, would assist me in the endeavour .

All I'm saying is if Youz Guyz down there don't grab Cantor Joe and keep him close, I fear that his may be the experience of St Augustine, who was tied up while visiting a Church one day and brought to serve in it by force . . .

And, Cantor Joe, if you are apologizing for whatever in your previous excellent post, I'd be very much afraid of reading one of your posts when you feel you are more "composed" shall we say . . .

In that case, I'd have to call my wife or father-in-law to stand behind me after I'm finished reading it so that they can catch me as I go falling from being completely overwhelmed!

God bless!

Alex