www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Anyone familiar with "Adoremus?"

Dear Alex,

I think that you are fair and balanced! I will stand staunchly along side of you and repeat to all who listen to me, "Alex is not unbalanced!" (Sorry just couldn't resist.)

Seriously I think your comments were fair and that in them you had a clear vision of what is being done to the Latin Liturgy by some of our Orthodox Posters here. It is becoming the whipping boy. I believe that that is unfair even when it is done under the guise of balance in ecumenical discussion.

I'd rephrase one of your observations if I may based on the discussion here. Under the surface of the ecumenical fraternal correction concerning the Whipping Boy tends to lurk an attitude I myself am disturbed about among the Orthodox who post on this issue. Some of these posters project the attitude that if it isn't the way we do it or think it should be done, it
shouldn't be done.

So, my friend, please keep your focus on these discussions and share what you see with us. I have found your insights here to be right on target.

Thank you!

Steve
JOY!

Dear Steve, et al.
Thanks for not getting too upset at me for my post-this was a REALLY hot topic for me about 3 years ago, but I'm (hopefully) over much of it now. Believe it or not, I have been to some tasteful NO masses, but they were at parishes that had either the NO Latin or 1962 Tridentine masses.

Serge-
Great points about the other Roman Rites! Unfortunately the NO gets too much attention, because its simply far more prevalent. If only every RC parish was like Our Lady of Atonement in San Antonio...sigh

God Bless,

Michael

A few years ago, following a special presentation at the local Greek Orthodox parish, I was talking with a gentleman in his early 50's [cradle Orthodox, first generation Greek-American,] who identified himself as the leader of the parish's youth group for high school aged kids.

After he found out that I was a Catholic, he asked me if I knew about any RC chuches in the area that still had the "Latin Mass". Apparently he had taken the youth group to visit at a neighboring Roman Catholic parish shortly before and he wanted to take them to a "Latin Mass" to show them how the Catholic Church "used to be when he was their age".

His comment on his experience at the parish church they recently visited was "'I was astonished to see how much had changed'".

This leads to a question on my part;

Who among Othodox scholars and/or liturgists have actually praised the Novus Ordo?

I'd be interested in knowing if someone knows of any who have because I've certainly not heard of any myself.

With continued Holiday best wishes [including feast days] to all!
Stefan

[ 01-09-2002: Message edited by: Stefan-Ivan ]

If the Byzantine Liturgy was scoured of its centuries of monastic barnacles and pious traditions and recovered its ancient form ... we would have the NO. Of course, a barrier like New Skete would be the only necessary thing and no guitars. :p Don't forget: it was them monks who didn't even want singing! The fact that the bishop still sits outside the altar during all the pre-liturgy liturgy (litany and antiphons) before making his 'Entrance', should tell us that we have ritualized the preliminaries, especially making the pre-liturgical offertory into a mini-liturgy. If Orthodox doctrine and liturgical practice is a reaction to existing heretical beliefs and acts, then our liturgy is a 'reactionary' liturgy and not a service that reflect a first-move love and worship. We lost the touch and the spirit. For example, as a reaction to the iconoclasts we cluttered that altar barrier with icons to the point that we've distracted ourselves from why we were there. We slap on pious theologies about heaven and earth with sophisticated iconographic principles and canons to justify the extra-liturgical pie-in-the-skie theology. We have to go back to the font-source, the wellspring of worship.

[ 01-10-2002: Message edited by: Edwin ]

"If the Byzantine Liturgy was scoured of its centuries of monastic barnacles and pious traditions and recovered its ancient form ... we would have the NO."

Not exactly. The core of the Byzantine rite, as Fr. Schmemann has pointed out, was the 'cathedral' rite of Haghia Sophia in Constantinople, crystallizing roughly around the turn of the millenium. That rite was a hybrid developed based on influences of several Eastern liturgical usages (with a good dose of the Antiochian use thanks to St. John Chrysostom), but was not, itself, the product of monastic barnacles and pious traditions. These latter have, of course, crept into the Byzantine rite over subsequent centuries - but removing them would not return the Byzantine rite to something that resembles the N.O. -- it would still be a rather, elaborate, complex, 'cathedral' rite.

"If Orthodox doctrine and liturgical practice is a reaction to existing heretical beliefs and acts, then our liturgy is a 'reactionary' liturgy and not a service that reflect a first-move love and worship."

That's only partially true (and it's partially true for all rites, as the communicant dialogue in the Latin rite, introduced during the counter-reformation, attests). More basically, the rite reflects a movement toward God, as Fr. Schmemann and others have noted. The issue is our understanding of the rite as it exists - which is often deficient.

"We have to go back to the font-source, the wellspring of worship."

Liturgy develops organically. It is problematic either to suggest that no further development should occur (the trap fallen into by some Orthodox), but it is equally problematic to suggest that the developments that have occurred should be scrapped in favor of some pristine font-source -- because that can often result in the creation of an artifical, synthetic liturgical construct that is itself out of touch, but meets the paradigm of some liturgical thinker's aesthetic. There are things in the Byzantine rite that ought to be changed slightly, but more importantly the people who follow the Byzantine rite need to understand it better, to understand why we do what we do. Fr. Schmemann actually advocated very little (almost none) liturgical *reform* or *change* of word or ritual, but he did advocate a lot of re-thinking of understandings of what we are doing so that we can rediscover the depths of the liturgy we have.

Brendan