www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy Fr Tom Hopko on "pseudomorphosis"

...An Orthodox bishop comes to a congregation in his diocese headed by a presbyter. He is greeted at the church door in the most solemn manner. He is wearing a decorated monastic mantia even though he may have never actually lived a monastic life, and never was, and is not now, under monastic obedience to anyone. His clothing is that of the Turkish period. He is wearing a Turkish judge's robe and hat, covered with a monastic veil.

After entering the church, the bishop is solemnly vested in clothing that was once worn by the Byzantine-Roman emperor. He puts on a sakkos (instead of a phelonion), a mitre and decorated crosses and medallions. He carries a staff, stands on an eagle rug and sits on a throne in the nave where the imperial authority used to sit. He may have long hair, the sign of secular authority in Byzantium that was given to the Christian clerics by the Turks, and later adopted in the Russian Empire.

In this solemn liturgical setting, the local pastor and the servers and singers are nervous and scared. They fear making mistakes that will incur the bishop's wrath. The people, for the most part, wonder what all this is about and why it is at all necessary. Some people enjoy it. Others endure it. Others stay home or go to another church on that day.

Almost no one, including the clergy themselves, understand it.

At this liturgy, the vesting of the bishop and the entrance with the singing of many hymns and multiple intonations of "Many Years, Master (Eis polla eti, Despota)" and many repetitions of the Trisagion, with many petitions and blessings, goes on for a very long time. The scripture readings are read in ways that make them difficult, sometime even impossible to understand because of language, style of chanting, and noise from a clanging incenser with bells on it. There is no sermon explaining the scripture readings, or if there is, it has little or nothing to do with them. Multiple litanies are chanted, which include expulsions of catechumens who are either not there, or don't leave the gathering if they are. The Eucharistic Canon, which is the very heart and highpoint of the Orthodox Divine Liturgy, takes only a few minutes. How long it takes depends on the length of the singing. The bishop rushes through the prayers silently and quickly, if he even reads them at all. The faithful people hear only the ends of the sentences of the prayers which, by themselves, make no sense whatsoever...

...This is the kind of thing that can happen, and does happen, today, not only in North America, but everywhere on earth where there are Orthodox people. I believe that our very existence as the Orthodox Church depends on our attempt to untangle and understand the elements that make up contemporary church life, and to do something about it. Discovering what that "something" is that we must "do about it" for the Church's fruitful life and mission in the world today depends on our common prayer, ascetical practice, study and discussion. But most of all, it depends on our willingness to face reality, both human and divine, and to do God�s will, whatever it may be.