You are not alone, esteemed Administrator. Bishop John has responded to letters with demands of obedience to people who have complained. Lately he’s been less nasty so something may be cracking. Archbishop Basil simply does not respond.

Archbishop Basil does not want to talk about the RDL. If he knew the hullabaloo it would create he would never have promulgated it. He used to spout the line from Father Petras that no one will notice the changes. For the last year he has been telling people that the only reason he promulgated it is that Father Petras and the commission worked so hard on it. Bishop John pretty much says the same thing. Skurla seems as if he would have liked them to insert the Roman Canon.

How is this done, how does it look like, and what is omitted?

If we're chanting only one antipon, then we chant the first (with its variable verses based on the feast), followed by Hymn of the Incarnation. The Small Entrance finishes roughly in time with the ending of this hymn.

So, the Small Entrance actually occurs during the chanting of the FIRST Antiphon followed by the Monogenes?

I'd like to know when the Melkite Synod decreed this reform of the Divine Liturgy. I haven't heard of it before.

In the Ukrainian mission in Charlotte NC, we chant the typical psalms every sunday and the beatitudes. The typical psalms though are just a few select verses.

The Book of the Gospels is lifted from the altar as the "Glory be to the Father" at the end of the last antiphon. Thus if there is one, the Hymn of the Incarnation is being chanted as the Small Entrance procession is taking place.

The Melkite synod decreed this in 1969. The synods are held and documented in Arabic (today), so you would find few references and certainly no text on the Internet.

There really isn't enough good Melkite material on the Internet.

There's quite a bit of good Melkite material in circulation. But one must learn the Melkite national language (French, that is).

Fr. Serge

Vous avez tout à fait raison, mon père!

Merci! Et que Dieu te benisse!

P. Serge

There are quite a few (and seemingly increasing) number of Ukrainian Greek Catholic and Orthodox parishes in North America that use the Typical Psalms and Beatitudes on regular Sundays. At English liturgies I generally always use them when festal Antiphons are not appointed.

There is a catechetical hunger as well as great beauty in the regular singing of the Beatitudes at the Divine Liturgy.

As for the Troparia at the Beatitudes, these are not generally done anymore outside of monasteries and the Old Rite.

The Levkulic abbreviation of the Typical Psalms is an abbreviation of an abbreviation - it is shorter than the compressed verses of Psalms 102 and 145 given in the UGCC Synodal Liturgikon, which are essentially the same as those suggested in the OCA 1984 pew book as the usual parochial practice or in the Ukrainian Orthodox English books.

Serbian parishes seem to use the troparia at the Beatitudes.

Fr. Serge

I don't have a Levkulic book in front of me, but it is interesting to note that this "abbreviation" in older Rusyn books (Boksaj, for instance) is not, as some suppose, the first verse of the Psalm, but the final repeated verse of Psalm 102, after the "Slava... i nyni...."

This coincides with the practice in Serbian and Romanian parishes of singing the final "Slava" and Psalm verse. Psalm Psalm 145 is omitted altogether.

Dave

Is it permitted to use the typical psalms and the beatitudes at a weekday liturgy? Sometimes I am cantoring alone with the priest and I might want to try them.

We never use them on Sunday.

It is acceptable in the UGCC, although the weekday antiphons are often taken. There is a "simple" setting of both in our Anthology for a weekday Liturgy.