For those parishes that are celebrating the Divine Liturgy with Vespers of Holy Saturday in the evening.

A question regarding rubrics For the blessing of food afterward, since the final blessing of the liturgy is: How then, does the blessing of food, which starts out...
...not conflict with the final blessing of the Saturday Divine Liturgy & Vespers since at this juncture the Paschal Matins have not been sung nor has the priest yet proclaimed the resurrection Gospel?

Perhaps there are rubrics for this arrangement I am not presently aware of?

Respectfully,

Steve Petach

My congregation will not have the blessing of the baskets in their service booklets for Holy Saturday. It may appear in the Sunday booklet, and does appear in the Holy Week Services book itself, which most parishioners do not have.

Also, the typikon itself is silent on the blessing of the baskets either day.

Is the priest left to adjust the blessing per parochial practice?

I figure that may not answer your question, though. Any other Ruthenians of the Pittsburgh metropolia have additional input?

Another question is why so many differences, as seen in the thread regarding which Holy Week Liturgical services are being done and in what order, when in practice, there should be a reasonably consistent order of celebrations for major feast days such as Christmas and Pascha???

Perhaps it is just as well I ask this at such a late juncture this year, there will be less contentious discussion. We'll just stumble through this year and do it differently next year, and some other way the following year and so on...

Steve Petach

Steve, I am wondering if you would mind my moving this topic to Faith & Worship. At first I thought it was going to be simply a matter of trying to find an answer to a procedural matter, but now that you have inquired about why different churches follow different schedules, I am thinking this is getting away from procedural matters altogether. I have asked FrDeaconEd of the Faith & Worship forum if he would be willing to receive this topic, and he has said yes. Let me know if you have an objection to the topic's being moved.

Perhaps many cantors don't care which way things are done. I don't see how the question of why various parishes differ necessitates a deviance from questions of a procedural nature. However, if the subject is too sensitive for this forum then go ahead and move the topic. I have saved my text for this anyway.

Steve Petach

The day will be over soon enough for the question to wait another year.

Well, it turns out that our people's service book for Saturday differs from our book for Sunday. There is no "Christ is Risen" in the Saturday book, but there IS in the Sunday book. As to the validity of blessing bread etc., there are alternative prayers available that do not require Pascha to have arrived- in many jurisdictions, not just ours.

Steve, are you asking about the differences in service choices within the Ruthenian metropolia alone, or are you asking about differences throughout the Christian East?

Service decisions do not necessarily involve cantors. Kliros is, after all, basically a forum for cantors. Maybe you would be better off starting a topic in a broader category.

Christos Voskres!!

Jim,

Since the point is now moot for those of us on Gregorian calendar, please remove or close the thread.

Steve Petach

Why not simply reserve the blessing to take place when it should, after the Divine Liturgy on Pascha? [I know, I know . . . people allegedly want it done earlier, for a variety of unconvincing reasons.]

Incognitus

At least at my parish, basket blessing gets people to come for the Vespers/St. Basil Liturgy. It's repeated on Pascha, after the DL as well, this time with XB.

Christ is Risen!

Steve raises some very good questions.

There is a school of thought that says that “Vespers belongs in the evening and Matins in the morning” and with it the desire to simply reschedule the Divine Services in those “correct” time slots. The problem with this is that the Divine Services continued to develop long after they were anticipated by half a day and much of the text and music simply doesn’t work when one reschedules the Divine Services. But we have discussed this and could discuss it again in another thread.

The “Blessing of the Baskets” service that is often anticipated on Saturday afternoon (instead of after either Pascha Matins or the Paschal Divine Liturgy) needs to be understood in historical context. Back in the first part of the last century most people walked to church, and carrying a basket was awkward. To serve a need the custom of the priest visiting neighborhoods to bless baskets developed (my grandparents house was one of the blessing sites). Since there were about 15-20 “blessing stations” time constraints forced the priest to do most of the blessings throughout the day on Holy Saturday. By the 1950s most people had automobiles and a single “blessing station” at the parish hall on Saturday afternoon replaced the 15-20 “blessing stations”. It probably would have been better to return to blessing after the Pascha Matins or the Divine Liturgy but that didn’t happen. And so the custom of blessing baskets on Holy Saturday afternoon remains.

I am aware of one priest who ended the custom of blessing baskets on Saturday afternoon by showing up in black vestments and singing everything in a requiem tone. I’m not sure I agree with this method but no one liked it and eventually they all brought their baskets to Resurrection Matins / Divine Liturgy on Saturday night.

Some of the clergy who seek to justify singing “Christ is risen” on Saturday afternoon do so by saying that the Resurrection Gospel was already proclaimed at Vespers and Divine Liturgy on Saturday morning. But those parishes that have rescheduled this service on Saturday night can’t make such a claim. AFAIK there is no official direction on this issue.

It has always been my contention that we ought to maintain consistency with the rest of the Byzantine Churches (Orthodox and Catholic and especially those other Churches of the Ruthenian recension). Innovations such as placing the Sacrament of Holy Anointing within the Presanctified Divine Liturgy of Holy Wednesday instead of restoring the full Service of Holy Anointing and rescheduling some of the Divine Services only creates a liturgical mess. I won’t get into the mess of liturgical theology that results when one commands the combining of Vespers, Basil Divine Liturgy and Pascha Matins into a single service (where the Matins becomes the high point instead of the Eucharist of the Divine Liturgy).

About 10 years ago my local parish celebrated the Vespers and Divine Liturgy of St. Basil on Holy Saturday at noon, with a crowd averaging about 50 each year. Then in the evening at 10:00 PM we had Resurrection Matins and the Chrysostom Divine Liturgy with about 350 participating (they were literally standing outside the doors). Then came the experiment with Vespers/Basil/Matins and the numbers dropped to 65 people (with the rest not coming on Easter Sunday morning). Concerned with the huge drop in numbers they changed to Vespers and Basil Divine Liturgy at 5 PM and Resurrection Matins and Chrysostom Divine Liturgy at 9 PM. I was leading the singing elsewhere (where the crowds are growing) but I was told that the 5 PM Vespers and Basil Divine Liturgy had about 35 people and the 9 PM Matins and Divine Liturgy had only about 70 people. And the morning Divine Liturgies were just a bit above normal size. I guess some people consider the loss of 250 people to be an acceptable cost for their idea of “liturgical correctness”.

Admin

Admin,

But was the loss of 250 from the combo of Vesperal St. Basil DL and Matins or the moving of Vesperal St. Basil DL from 12PM to 5PM? I find it hard to believe 250 people didn't come to Matins and St. John Chrysostom DL because it was an hour earlier at 9PM or because they had Vesperal St. Basil DL at 5PM.

In fact, I am betting the 50 you had at Vesperal St. Basil DL at 12PM also went to Matins and St. John Chrysostom DL at 10PM and would do so whether Vesperal was at 12Pm or 5pm. It seems to me that the Vesperal St. Basil/Matins combo is the attendance killer, and people simply go to parishes that disregard the directive to do this and stay away from the parishes that do. At least this is what I have gleaned from homecomers at my parish from Passaic.

In any case, according to your own numbers after your stopped this you got a net gain of 40 from the 65 you were reduced to.

I don't see how moving Vesperal St. Basil DL to 4 or 5PM can have any impact on Matins or Matins and St. John Chrysostom DL. Those who go to the former are the devout who are going to go to both anyway.

In my own parish we had Pashcal Matins without Divine Liturgy at 7:30PM and two Divine Liturgies in the Morning. Each was packed and Matins actually had the greatest number of baskets to blessed. (On an ordinary Sunday we have one DL Sat night and one Sun morning). I am positive Vesperal St. Basil would have no impact on any of this whether if it was served at 12Pm or 5PM.

Fr. Deacon Lance

Christ is Risen!

Father Deacon Lance,

The loss of 250 people occurred during the 4 or 5 years the Vesper/Basil/Matins combination was mandated. Now that the Vesper/Basil and Matins/Liturgy format is permitted once again the people have not come back. Once you have alienated people it is very difficult to get them back. The same thing has occurred with the mandate of the Revised Divine Liturgy (with much of the rubrical revisions already mandated in the Passaic Eparchy). Regular Sunday participation has declined by 1/3 since the mandates took effect (and the stories from many parishes indicate this loss of people seems to have occurred in many places).

But even the simple moving of the Vesper/Basil from the morning to the evening without the forced addition of Pascha Matins would be a killer. People expect anything occurring on Holy Saturday evening to be the equivalent of an Easter Vigil. But the Vesper/Basil Liturgy (even though it has the proclamation of the Resurrection from Matthew 28) has essentially somber music, as well as lacking in the joyful troparion “Christ is risen”. So people who come to it find it a turn off when it is advertised as the “first Liturgy of Easter” as the Revisionists present it. As it exists now (texts and music) it is the perfect liturgy for Holy Saturday morning or noontime (or even early afternoon). But it simply does not work as a “First Liturgy of Easter”. I know some places have tried to doctor it up by singing the paschal troparion after the Gospel but it just doesn’t fit with “Let all mortal flesh keep silent” and “Mourn not for me, O Mother”. But such doctoring just makes things worse.

One must be very careful when making such major changes in the intimate spiritual lives of the people (yes, even moving something from morning to night is a forced major intimate spiritual change).

I’m sorry to be so blunt, but I believe that those who think it’s ok to just reschedule the Divine Services without consideration for their historical (textual) or musical development just don’t understand the basic principles of Liturgy, let alone good Liturgy. You may again accuse me of disobedience but I believe strongly that it is our bishops who are being disobedient to the official Ruthenian liturgical tradition and to the 1996 Liturgical Directive by their mandating this liturgical nonsense. I again urge our faithful (lay and clergy) to petition the bishops for authentic liturgical renewal, and not the revisions some bishops have mandated so far. We need a complete set of liturgical books that is as identical to the official books published by Rome as is possible.

Admin

Admin,

Please don't misunderstand me. I don't think the Vesperal St. Basil should be advertised as the first Paschal Liturgy although I do favor a late afternoon time for it. It should be advertised for exactly what it is: the Baptismal Liturgy for catechumens. And if you have catechumens, infants or converts who need baptism and/or chrismation this should be the Liturgy it is done at. If you don't then there is no harm in doing it later just make sure the people know "Christ is Risen" isn't sung until Matins and baskets won't be blessed until after Matins. That alone should encourage most to go to Paschal Matins.

Fr. Deacon Lance

Christ is Risen!

Father Deacon,

But here is the problem. Many of our parishes now have a 4:00 PM (or thereabouts) “Vigil Divine Liturgy” on Saturday afternoons. Anything that occurs after about 3:00 PM will be seen by the majority of the faithful as a Vigil Divine Liturgy of Easter (and they will expect to hear “Christ is Risen”). There is no getting around this unless we finally get rid of the regular Saturday afternoon Vigil Divine Liturgies and replace them with Great Vespers (that is not attached to a Divine Liturgy).

I’m not inflexible on the timing of the Vesper/Basil Liturgy. It seems to me that the ‘received’ timing is anywhere from early morning until noon-ish. I’m not sure why this received tradition is so anathema to the Revisionists.

We need to return to the official liturgical style and texts of our Ruthenian recension. If the Spirit wishes to lead us He will do so over generations. Forcing unnecessary change only alienates.

Admin

Indeed He is Risen!

Admin,

I don't know if I agree with that assumption. My Parish has Sat Night Divine Liturgy. We had Paschal Matins without Divine Liturgy Holy Saturday night and everyone there showed up for one of the two Divine Liturgies on Sunday morning. In otherwords, no one felt excused from attending Divine Liturgy on Sunday because they had attended Paschal Matins.

So if Vesperal St. Basil were in the afternoon (our's was in the morning) I have the feeling that most would not go except a few of the very devout. The people know Paschal Matins is The Resurrection Service and most come to it even though they are going to Liturgy in the morning.

Now would those who go to Vesperal St. Basil feel excused from attending Liturgy Sunday morning? Probably, but then we could probably go to one Liturgy Pascha morning, which isn't a bad thing.

Fr. Deacon Lance