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I am going to throw out this question for my won curiosity. How is it that the Eastern Rites have such wide latitude in the way the faith is presented to the faithful? You have St. Elias in Brampton Ont.(more orthodox than Orthodox) on one hand and the church in my area (keeping the identity quiet for obvious reasons) that is pretty loosey goosey with tradition. I would think that there would be a standard from the Eparchy for all to follow.

True. Then on the other end of the spectrum, you have some Eastern Churches that are more "Latinized" in their traditions, where they recite half the Divine Liturgy, where no censers are used, and all that stuff. I'm hoping that there will be standards soon, much like you, in terms of bringing the true Byzantine tradition back to the UGCC, and to make sure that we can really evangelize at the same time. Easier said than done in this secular society, but...I'm pretty sure that if we could return to the real traditions, we can bring back the faithful that we've lost during our "reinventing the wheel" if you will.

Oh, and I've seen YT Videos on St. Elias, and I almost thought it was like looking at a ROCOR Church. You're right, that's probably the most traditional I've seen yet from a UGCC parish. They should be a role model to others that wish to seek the real traditions.

Father Robert Taft identified the source of the problem back in 1999. Nothing much has changed since then:

Well, at least the Ruthenians are still considered more traditional in terms of singing most of the DL, and using the censer, and having Matins and Vespers when they're called for. At least under Bishop John Kudrick, things are pretty traditional in terms of how I see things when I head to parishes where higher clergy presides (higher clergy = Archpriest or above).

After the Second Vatican Council, it has been said that the Eastern Rite should return to traditions that we are used to, and to become less "Latinized" over time. However, judging by how the article StuartK just posted, it seems like there are some Churches that just don't feel the obligation to return to their true tradition. It's sad in a way, because it almost takes the real feel of the Divine Liturgy out of the equation. I'm hoping that there'll be something that can be done to remedy that in time.

Addendum to my original post. A full Divine Liturgy done in just over 45 minutes. Heck, it takes me longer than that to drive to church.

Only if you are doing it wrong.

Well, then again, a Theophany Eve with the Compline, and the Blessing of the Water with Vespers, and the like, it could take upwards of 2 hours, so there's the other extreme.


Yeah, maybe when you have a small congregation during a weeknight, and they bypass the Homily, etc... I can see this as being the case.

I'm talking "the" Sunday Divine Liturgy including a Eucharistic minister to hurry things along.

As I said--doing it wrong.

From the same essay, Taft identified what he considered specific liturgical problems facing Eastern Catholic Churches in the United States:


Appendix
Liturgical Problems in North America


All of the above are of course purely clerical problems, despite routine clerical pretense that one cannot do this or that �because of the people�. That is true only when the clergy have brainwashed the people into rejecting what the clergy themselves refuse to do.

But apart from such theological and liturgical issues as those outlined above, what are some of the concrete problems of Eastern liturgy in North America? I restrict my horizon to North America because I have never set foot in Latin America or Oceania, and am not in the habit of discussion what I know nothing about. That excellent document, the 1996 Instruction for Applying the Liturgical Prescriptions of the Code of Canons for the Eastern Churches, provides a full anthology of the Holy See�s teaching and discipline on the concrete problems of Eastern Catholic liturgy today. A short list of some of the specific problems faced in North America would, in my view, include the following:

1. The rule forbidding the ordination of married men to the priesthood and the drastic decline in vocations to the celibate priesthood and religious life have reduced some Church to a precarious state in providing pastoral-liturgical care for their people, with resulting losses to the Church of large numbers of the faithful.

2. The problem of translations of liturgical texts into English. Some of the English translations presently in use or under review for approval are excellent; others are semi-literate at best. There is a crying need for a complete English version of all the liturgical texts, including all the propers. And of course, ideally that work would be done in common by all the jurisdictions or eparchies using the same rite.

3. Intimately linked to the problem of translation is, of course, the problem of liturgical music. To translate a text into another language may destroy the language rhythms and cadences for which the music was composed. In some parishes in North America, the active participation of the congregation in singing the liturgy is admirable; in others, less so.

4. In discussing the problem of translations, I adverted to a more fundamental issue: the lack of collaboration and unity among the various jurisdictions of the Byzantine tradition�in some cases, even among eparchies in the same Church�not only in the preparation of the liturgical texts, but in other areas affecting the liturgy, such as clergy formation and catechesis. This is not only impractical, it is a scandal.

5. Church design is another basic liturgical issue. A church must be built according to the demands of the rite to be celebrated therein. There are still Byzantine churches in the U.S. and Canada without an iconostasis�some of the built quite recently. How that is possible fifty-five years after the official publication of the Oriental Congregation, the Ordo Celebrationis Vesperarum, Matutini et Divinae Liturgiae iuxta Recensionem Ruthenorum, appeared in May 1944? Ordo secs. 1-6 deal explicitly with the proper arrangement of the sanctuary and altar; Sec. 6 states that an altar without an iconostasis�even a side altar�is not considered suitable for liturgical celebrations. The same teaching is resumed in Instruction, Sec. 104.

6. Of course, it does no good to have a properly arranged church building if the services are not celebrated, and a major liturgical problem is the decline and in some cases, the disappearance of the public celebration of Vespers, Matins, Presanctified and other offices, an issue also addressed in Instruction, Secs. 97-98.

7. In that context, the Instruction rightly draws attention to the need for a renewal and fostering of the liturgy of the bishop�s cathedral (Sec. 56), of monasticism (Sec.98) as the cradle where the liturgical cycle of offices can be celebrated with completeness and full solemnity. It has always been the tradition of at least certain forms of Eastern monasticism to be open to the active participation of others in the services, and Eastern monasteries near urban centers have always been places of pilgrimage, especially for participation in the offices of the great feasts and for spiritual direction.

8. Even when the services are celebrated, especially the Eucharist, they have to be celebrated properly. Some priests celebrate magnificently, with due reverence, devotion and respect for the tradition, in obedience to the explicit command of Inter ecumenici, the September 26, 1964 Instruction for the Proper Implementation of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, that �Liturgical ceremonies should be celebrated with the utmost perfection� (Sec.13). Others celebrate at breakneck speed their own private selective version of what they have decided the liturgy should be, convinced that the laity do not want to spend any more time in church than they do.

9. Preaching is another area that needs attention. Of course, preparing a homily requires study and work. But proclaiming and preaching God�s Word is an essential part of liturgy, as is perfectly obvious in the theology and pastoral activities of the Fathers of the Church in both East and West.

10. Also pastorally serious is the decline, even the collapse, of the Church�s Lenten and penitential discipline, including in some cases even the sacrament of reconciliation, and fasting during the Church�s other �Lents�. Of course, if the clergy themselves do not celebrate the Lenten services or observe and personal ascetic discipline, it is hard to see how one can convince the laity that they should.

11. Numerous abuses stigmatized, reproved, and forbidden explicitly or implicitly in the 1996 Instruction or the earlier 1944 Ordo Celebrationis can still be seen in North America: the use of pre-cut prosphoras and particles in the Byzantine Prothesis or Rite of Preparation of the Gifts (Ordo, sec. 98ff); Baptism of infants by aspersion instead of immersion (Instruction, Sec.48); failing to compelete the Rites of Christian Initiation by communicating infants (CCEO, Canons 697, 710; Instruction, sec.51); mob concelebrations wit concelebrants participating outside the sanctuary enclosure (Instruction, Sec. 57); priests serving as deacons (Instruction, Sec.75); etc.

12. As for latinizations such as �low Mass�, for one who knows something about the authentic liturgical traditions of the Christian East, they are not even worth discussion.

This short list reflects deficiencies in what are, of course, the basic issues underlying almost all the problems of pastoral liturgy: religious education, clergy formation, and leadership. With respect to the latter, there pops up in mind again the old and still unanswered question, �Quis custodies ipsos custodiet?�

A WHAT?????!!!!!!?????

Yeah, really, that Eucharistic Minister is such a Roman tradition.

The Ruthenian custodian bishops of the Liturgy have made permanent the "LOW MASS" in a form they call the "Revised Divine Liturgy." And they insist that Taft wanted all this! And that it was required by Rome!

And I'm wondering what the "Low Mass" meant after the Second Vatican Council, when we were ordered to return to our traditional roots.

Folks,

If we're going to get specifically into RDL issues, please take it to the RDL sub-forum. Thanks.

Many years,

Neil