Well, I'd far sooner concede grooviness than worthiness

Actually, it's difficult to imagine a more text book example of dynamic equivalence than the near-universal (in the US) rendering of "well-revered and God-guarded kings" as "our President" or even just "civil authorities"!!

Let's face it, sometimes a little dyn. equiv. is necessary to make something intelligible. Just don't make it an ideological committment.

No, restricting myself to this one petition and the surrounding issue, the solution proffered by these translators is as good as any other I've seen.

And if there are particular people in a parish whose responsibilities on our country's behalf have put them in harm's way, perhaps the better pastoral solution is to remember them by name in the Litany after the Gospel and/or at the Great Entrance together with all those others in each community who most need prayers.

Just my thoughts,

hierodeacon Maximos

There is no objection whatever to mentioning the names of the faithful in the divine services in the usual places and the usual way. It is something else again, though, to commemorate a purely secular official as though he were a Christian Sovereign.

In the traditional service-books of the past one usually found prayers for the "Christ-loving armed forces". These days, such words would provoke mirth in the Church.

Fr. Serge

As an ex military chaplain I for one will continue to pray for those in our armed forces.
Stephanos I

The 1964/1965 translation has in the Great Synapte: “For our civil authorities (For our divinely-protected Emperor N. or King N.), and for all our armed forces, let us pray to the Lord.” The petition in the Litany of Supplication after the Gospel is similar (except it adds after the mention of the emperor or king: “for his health and salvation”).

The proposed new revision has: ”For our government and all in the service of our country, let us pray to the Lord.”

Two points:

1 Process - The references to “our divinely-protected Emperor N. or King N.” are part of the official recension book and should not be removed from any new Liturgicon (in any language) without agreement from all the Churches that make up the recension.

2. Text – There is nothing wrong with the proposed change but I don’t see it as an improvement over the existing version. I’d like to know what was in the commission’s mind when they made the change. Did they hope to broaden the scope of the prayer? Was someone offended by the reference to the “armed forces”? I would like to see the minutes that recorded the analysis of this petition. I would recommend a modification to their text (if they wish to specifically pray for the government) as: “For our government, our armed forces, and all who serve our country, let us pray to the Lord.”

There is something appealing about what I’ve heard in some OCA parishes: “For the President of these United States, for the Congress and the Supreme Court, for all civil authorities and for the armed forces, let us pray to the Lord.” But a change of this magnitude would need to be accomplished at the recension level.

"For those in the service of our country" has been around since the 1978 blue book. Why all the uproar now? Does any intelligent person think of anything other than those in the army, navy, airforce, marines, or coast guard when somebody says: "He is serving his country or is the service of our country."? I know I certainly don't think of the postman.

And is omitting Emperor/King that big a deal in this country? Only Greek Catholics living in Spain, Belgium, Monaco, Luxembourg have Catholic monarchs for whom they could use this petition.

Fr. Deacon Lance

Father Deacon,

Thanks for your post. Yes, I have seen for “all in the service of our country” (replacing “armed forces”) in some of the pew books. I have not heard all that many deacons or priests use the altered terminology. Perhaps it is something more common in the Pittsburgh Archeparchy than it is in Passaic?

I do think of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard when I hear this petition. But I also quietly remember our President, the Governor of my state and my local police and firemen. Sometimes I even remember some friends of mine who work at the Pentagon. But this is off topic.

I do think omitting the references to the Emperor and the King in the Liturgicon is a big deal (Pew Books are a different story). We (as a local Church in a recension) do not have the authority to alter that which is the property of the whole. In a similar way I have previously noted that I believe that the members of the Ruthenian recension should act together to officially remove the filioque from the official texts of the Ruthenian books (even if only so it is officially gone once and for all). I am far from a legalistic person but I do believe that legal process is important. Here Washington, DC there is a continuing demand by some to “just allow” the “shadow representative” from Washington, DC to the U.S. House of Representatives the right to vote and have it counted legally. They say it would be OK to ignore the existing constitutional structure. I support some kind of representation in the House of Representatives for the residents of DC (the U.S. Constitution made no provision for this) but I oppose “just doing it”. What I support here is the rule of law to accomplish desirable goals at the proper level of authority. For us, our Metropolitan has the canonical authority to issue a translation (be it good or bad and apparently after some consultation with Rome). The Metropolitan does not have the authority to alter the text or rubrics of the Liturgy. Keeping the reworded petition would be considered a matter of translation (since it has already been approved in a previous edition). Removing the original petition (that references the Emperor or King) would be a matter for the entire Ruthenian recension to consider. [The 1965 edition is used by the Slovaks in Canada where they do pray for Queen Elizabeth.]

I do think that it is important to specifically remember the armed forces (and, by extension, all those who protect us). It is quite possible for an intelligent person who might have a bias against the military to think only about the governmental officials and their cousin who works for the IRS. I am not insisting on this, but there may be theological implications here. By removing the reference to the armed forces and making it more generic could we be unwittingly complicit in allowing people to conclude that it is wrong to pray for our armed forces? The issue is not as straightforward as some might think. That’s why I would like to see the written account of how this decision was made by the commission. I don’t really think I am asking all that much here.

Admin

What law are you talking about? CCEO ?
Which Canon?

Dear father Deacon,
You forgot Liechtenstein!

Fr Serge

djs,

This is really a topic for another thread (please feel free to start one!). But since you’ve asked I’ve quoted the relevant canons and bolded and italicized the most important parts:

There has been much discussion on these canons in our Church. I’ve personally heard the unofficial opinions of two canon lawyers, one Byzantine and one Latin. Both noted that in this instance “rite” means “Ruthenian Rite”, so that our Metropolitan (with the consent of the entire council of hierarchs) could issue a translation but that he could not admit changes to the “Ruthenian rite” because the “Ruthenian Rite” did not belong to him alone (that would violate the “mutual goodwill and unity” part).

Some of the proposed rubrical changes would be legitimate as part of a liturgical instruction (how the Metropolitan wants the Liturgy to be taken). But they are not legitimate for a Liturgicon (the Church’s official Liturgy book). One can compare that the Latin Church’s official books in English are nearly identical to the official Latin edition. Rubrics (like waiting until the end of the Sanctus before kneeling) are properly part of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal. A short way of putting this is that the bishops can give a priest permission to skip a litany but they have no authority to print a Liturgicon without that litany.

We discussed this at length here on the Forum about a year (?) ago. Unfortunately the current version of the software we use has a poor search engine and I can’t find the thread. The software developers are promising a much improved version for the upgrade (which may happen in August).

Admin

My reading, FWIW, of the canons is that these matters are in the hands of the Metropolitan and the Synod of Bishops. I didn't find "rescension" (or "recension") in the CCEO search word list. I don't think that your interpretation of Canon 40 is correct, as it implies a sense of "rite" that is very different than the usual usage: the byzantine rite embraces many different Particular churches presumably with distinct "official" liturgical books. I think that mutual goodwill is important; it is, however, a two-way street.

In any event, the meaning of the Canon will be obvious from what Rome does or does not approve - independent of our interpretations.

Searches here have been corrupted by the opening of new fora and shifting of old threads there. It is especially tough to find posts relevant to the new liturgical edition. Some search results appear to point to "positions" within a forum that a moved thread formerly occupied. It's a mess, but presumably there should be some way to re-link the old pointers to the threads moved into the new fora. It would help.

djs,

There is no way at present to relink threads that have been moved to this forum. The anticipated software update that may correct this is still a couple months away for us. If on the database the thread shows as unavailable, it may have been moved here to this forum when it was created six days ago. You will just have to do the manual labor in finding it. I assure you that the 13 threads that were moved here when this section was created, none were deleted in the transfer. I was extremely careful in that regard. Our current software has no way to relink transferred threads.

Other than that I can offer no solution other than you will have to work a little harder in your searches to find the material needed for your posts in this section.

In IC XC,
Father Anthony+
Administrator

Who's army, Father?

Eli

djs,

Thanks for your post.

It was my understanding from the canon lawyers that the term “rite” applies at several levels. We are part of the “Byzantine Rite” but also part of the “Byzantine-Ruthenian Rite”. The Metropolia of Pittsburgh does not have its own set of official books but holds a single set of books in common with other Churches (the Ukrainian, Romanian, and etc.). Bishop Basil Takach was one of a group of Ruthenian Rite bishops who requested that Rome prepare and promulgate the Ruthenian recension books. Because we hold the books in common with others we need to accomplish change with others. This is why I have consistently argued that those things which are unique to the Ruthenian recension can be changed only by common agreement of all of the Churches of the Ruthenian recension while those things that are common across all the Byzantine Churches can only be change by common agreement of all of the Byzantine Churches.

Regarding mutual good will, the Liturgical Instruction does not tell us that organic process is a “two-way street”. It specifically tells us to look to what the Orthodox are doing with their official books. It does not speak directly to intra-Ruthenian diversity but it seems to assume that there should be none. The Ordo Celebrationis” most certainly applies to all the Churches which make up the Ruthenian recension.

But the canon lawyers I spoke with might be incorrect and you might be correct. Time will tell.

Thank you very much for your comments on the search engine, especially the part about moved threads. There is a way to rebuild the search engine index and I have run the script (which is why the Forum was closed for maintenance earlier). I hadn’t known about the broken links until you mentioned it. I don’t think it will improve the quality of the search engine but it should fix the links to what is returned from a search.

Admin

On the issue of the Canons, not just time, but as I mentioned, Rome will tell. I am interested to hear about the involvement of Bishop Basil in the development of the 1942 edition, and would pointers to anything available to read on this point.

When I mentioned the two-way street, this was in connection with the Canons that you quoted, not the liturgical instruction. Since this is Canon applies to all Particular churches and their mutual interatction, it is a manofold of two-way streets.

I posted my comments after your on the search hoping that three might be a fix to that problem. In trying to look back at previous postings I kept getting hits to other peoples posts on other threads. It took me awhile to realize the problem. And your fix worked.

Father Serge is reputed to be a wonderful historian. Perhaps he can enlighten us? My understanding is that there was disagreement so the bishops in both Europe and North America asked Rome to do the research and produce the books. My guess is that the time frame (probably late 1930’s or so) the political situation in Europe complicated everything.

OK. Yes, if there is an organic development that occurs in one Church that Church is certainly free to convince the others of its value. Possibly a good example of this might be a push by our Church to the other Churches in the recension to remove the filioque from all official Liturgical books. Of course the cannons and the Liturgical Instruction cannot each be understood in isolation.

Excellent!