Lift up your hearts! Rejoice and be glad! I am given to understand that Father Archimandrite Robert Taft's next volume in his monumental History of the Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom will be off the press before Xmas! Will everyone please start praying that nothing delays the book any further, and that Almighty God will grant Father Archimandrite Robert the time, energy, and impetus to complete the entire study before he heads off to the eternal Liturgy of the Kingdom.

Fr. Serge

I wonder if this book release will have an effect on the Sui Juris Metropolitan Byzantine Church of America's current Revised Divine Liturgy??

Ung

I'm not exactly holding my breath on that question. But the book itself is of much greater importance than the Pittsburgh RDL. I'd be willing to make a large wager that the book will still be of critical importance when the RDL is long forgotten.

Fr. Serge

In the last "Le Lien", the journal of the Melkite Patriarchate, H.B. Gregorios III, although showing too much respect for Arch. Taft, critizes in a study one of his thesis: that our Church had an antiochen rite which was replaced by the byzantine one. Our Patriarch defends that our rite is antiochen, and others too (maronite and syriac), but has some little modifications in relation to them and then the appropriate name for it would be "greek rite".

It's a very interesting study that opens new dimension in the ecumenical and inter-eclesial relationship.

Anyway, trusting particularly in Arch. Serge's big admiration for that work of Arch. Taft, I wish it will be well succeed and I pray for this.

In what way does His Holiness show "too much respect" for Father Archimandrite Robert?

The Byzantine liturgical tradition is certainly Antiochian, with lots of elements from Jerusalem as well. One of the most important factors of the Byzantine synthesis is the habit of Constantinople of absorbing and integrating elements from quite a variety of sources.

Fr. Serge

Gotta go with Fr. Serge on this one. The "texts" of the "Byzantine Rite": the Menaion, the various Divine Liturgies, the Horlogion, the Typikon and the like are a mixture of elements from Holy Fathers of all kinds of places. It's wrong to call them "Greek" just because the language is Greek. Significant parts (maybe even the majority?) of them come from various people who lived in Anatolia, Syria, and the Holy Land (to include of course the Deir Mar Savvas).

Fr. Serge, sorry, but maybe the "too" I used means "in excess", I don't know. Is that the problem?

Markos, precisely from what you said, is much less just to call our rite "byzantine"! Calling it "greek" means that it is antiochen and uses the greek language. You have to read the article of our Patriarch. Do you read French? I could send you it.

Dear Philippe,

Yes, the "too" in that context does mean "in excess", which is what had me puzzled.

with every blessing,

Fr. Serge

Dear Fr Serge et al,

Having been a priest in the Antiochian Patriarchate for twelve years, I can testify that very often Arabs, when speaking in English, use the words "too much" idiomatically for "very great" or "the greatest." I assume that it comes from a literal translation of Arabic words into English. They do not realise that it always carries a negative connotation in English.

Fr David Straut

Dear Father David,

You may well be right - I've run into the same phenomenon among native speakers of Arabic trying to cope with English.

Fr. Serge

Fr David, you're right! In Arabic there is no easy way to express "too much"; you just have to say "strong"/"strongly" or "great"/"greatly" and imply that the size or quantity is more than expected or desired.
The Arabs you've met have probably learnt the most common translation into English and are applying it in all situations where the original Arabic phrase is used.

Hasn't Fr. Taft left the Catholic Church?

Well, I don't know if it's seems that, but it wasn't the Patriarch who wrote "too much", but myself.

Why no. I was privileged to see and talk with Fr Taft this past summer when he spoke at a Conference in New York that my daughter had organised. He was still Catholic then and I haven't read any headlinres since that he had left the Catholic Church. What made you think that?

Fr David Straut

Father Archimandrite has certainly not left the Catholic Church.

Fr. Serge