www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West The new western liturgy: an obstacle to ecumenism?

Dear Gerard,

Yes, there was a tad less love-making at WYD!

Not that it didn't happen, of course .

I suppose that the "Love thy neighbour" bit sometimes got out of hand . . .

And I'm on what seems to be a permanent high from it all.

Who even needs caffeine any more?

Alex

Dear Steve,

Don't worry about wandering threads, Old Boy!

I think it is your Latin perspective that wants to keep everything in order, categorized, filed away . . .

Just go with the flow, Big Guy!

Alex

There something interesting about this issues.

An "inclusive" liturgy and an active (if not agressive) youth pastoral labour have been the keys of the success of the Catholic Church (western rite) in Russia.

I recently had a friendly conversation with an Argenitian guy who is working as a lay missionary of the Sacred Heart, he has been in Russia working as a pastor for young people. I told him all the thing about how that proselitism has damaged the ecumenical dialogue, etc...
One of the things he said is that most of the new catholics (some of them former Orthodox, or atheists) think that the liturgy of the Orthodox Church is boring and redundant and that the latin one is more atractive, vibrant and that there's a lot of love in the parishes.

Inculturaion is also an interesting topic. Although a similar procedure was held by the first Byzantine missionaries in the Slavic nations, the Georgians, the Romanians, etc. and these nations brought their own national flavor to the byzantine church, the basic things are still present and did not change. (for example, the balalaikas are very common for the Russians but they never used them in Church because the Byzantine Church never allowed the use of instruments, dances are very common in Romania but they dont permorm them inside the Churches... and during the liturgy).
The problem of the Western concept of inculturation has brought many problems in Africa and Latin America and it has become a kind of sincretism. We know that there is an "orthodox" sincretism that has enriched the Church because it took the god things of the pagan cultures "but when the pagan culture prevails over the christian one, there is a problem" (Cardinal Raztinger).

Dear Remie,

You raise a fascinating point!

Of course, we Ukrainians have many, many traditions that have been Christianized from the pagan, pre-Christian times.

Even the icon corner is a Christianization of the East Slavic veneration of that corner in the house.

And the Russian word for priest "Batiushka" is the term of endearment given to the father of the family in pagan times, as the father was the one who performed the hearth rites etc.

The Cross itself was worn and worshipped by pre-Christian peoples. Assyrian Emperors wore the Cross as we know it today around their necks as amulets. Greek missionaries to Egypt easily converted people there by telling them their "Ankh" or Tau Cross was the emblem of the Saviour they had come to them to preach!

To this day, the Ankh is called the "Ansate Cross" in Christian Staurology and Heraldry.

Such inculturation is necessary in conjunction with the nations for whom Christianity is still a foreign, Western religion.

The Hindus have a thread they tie on their wrists in honour of one of the gods they dedicate themselves to, as an example.

Christians have developed a Christianized version of this tradition and ceremony.

Sometimes, such inculturation was made necessary due to extreme circumstances.

In Japan, with the expulsion of the Catholic missionaries there, Japanese police hunted down remaining Christians.

They identified these Christians by getting them to actually spit on crosses the police had taken from Christians and which they placed on the ground for all to spit on as they walked past.

Those who didn't defile the cross were arrested as Christians.

The Christians there, however, developed a tradition of incorporating the figure of a Buddha onto their neck Crosses.

The Buddha image represented Jesus Christ the Enlightened and the Enlightener (there is a Greek icon of the latter depiction of Christ "Photodotis").

Soon the Japanese police stopped getting people to spit on Crosses, as they would not have anyone spit on the image of a Buddha!

What was it that Thomas Merton once said?

"The job of the Christian missionary is not to 'bring Christ' to those cultures. He is, in fact, already there. Our real task is to identify to them Him Who is already among them, and Him Whom they already know in their own way."

Alex

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Remie:
[QB]There something interesting about this issues.

>>>An "inclusive" liturgy and an active (if not agressive) youth pastoral labour have been the keys of the success of the Catholic Church (western rite) in Russia.<<<

While it is true that the Moscow Patriarchate's refusal to translate the Liturgy into modern Russian may be an impediment to greater participation in and understanding of the Liturgy in Russia, I wouldn't overestimate the "success" of the Latin Church in Russia. Most of its adherents are either Poles or Western Ukrainians tranported to the Soviety interior during the Stalinist era, or their descendants. All the hysteria of the MP not withstanding, there has been very little proselytization by the Latins in Russia, and very little spontaneous conversion. Even the Evangelicals, after a brief flurry in the early 1990s, have experienced diminishing success in their missionary efforts (apparently, even money cannot buy true belief).

I would offer that maybe the first question is, who are the jurors? I would suggest that on first impression we must look to our Orthodox bishops and our official dialogue with the Catholic Church. We, thanks be to God, have had extentsive and meaningful offical dialogue with wide ranging agendas. For us on the Orthodox side, difficulties with the present Roman Liturgy have never even been raised signficantly.

Admittedly, their are those who attack and try to delegitimatize these dicscussions. I am not one of them; I am a strong supporter of any ecumencial discussion with the Catholic Church. Certainly the non-canonical Orthodox bodies are a different story.

Axios

Good point Axios.

I supose that if you put a Tridentine Christian and a ROCOR boy, they would become great friends as they share the same feelings about any modernist reform.

Actually I have had better relations with some in ROCOR then the Tridentinists in my old Byzantine Parish!!! Those who wanted to sing the Latin hymns before LIturgy when we should have been chanting the Third Hour!

Dear Alex,

Must be my propensity to see the mystical in the rational! I keep trying to catch those loose threads! The vibrantly colored ones, at least, must have some meaning.

Talk about flows, though. There have been some great ones in this thread, don't you think?

Floating along ....

Steve