www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy "REVISIONism" vs. "RECENSIONism"--a call for renewal

The Administrator's comments regarding silence in the Liturgy cited from writings by the Holy Father do not pertain to the liturgical practice of the Byzantine Churches (Catholic or Orthodox). Praying the Anaphora out of the hearing of the people is not the same as silence. Outside of the procession with the Holy Gifts during the PreSanctified Liturgy, I have not witnessed a silent period during our liturgical services. The current practice of the "silent Anaphora" has the priest praying portions of the Anaphora in a low voice while the cantors and/or congregation are singing. For example, once the Sanctus is finished the priest intones the words of institution aloud. The Byzantine practice of Anaphora prayed in a low voice by the priest during liturgical hymns is not the silence as communion before God to which the Administrator refers.

The Latin practice of silence was just that- silence. As I recall, the priest would pray the Roman Canon in a low voice after (not during) the Sanctus, so there was an extended period of silence during the Mass. Since there was complete silence, the hand bells would alert the faithful to the elevation of the Gifts. Yet, the faithful became separated from the action at the altar, so much so, that pious practices, like praying the rosary, developed to fill the silence. I hardly think the Holy Father is an advocate of returning the Mass to this scenario.

Dear Father Deacon,

Three points this morning:

1. It would be well, and useful, to read all of Pope Benedict's published work on the liturgy - it's good in itself, it will be worth-while to become further acquainted with his thoughts on the matter, and it will remove the need for speculation about what his thoughts are.

2. For the Roman Rite, one must distinguish between a Low Mass (which was the more common form of celebration) and a High Mass (which was always the normative form of celebration). At High Mass, the usual practice was to sing the Sanctus (Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God Sabaoth, Heaven and earth are filled with Thy glory. Hosanna in the highest) while the bishop or priest was already quietly offering the Post-Sanctus portion of the Anaphora. The choir would then be silent, everyone would kneel down, and prayerfully await the Institution Narrative (read inaudibly, of course, but everyone over the age of seven knew perfectly well what the bishop or priest was saying) and the Elevations. Then the choir and often the congregation would stand and sing the Benedictus (Blessed is He that cometh in the Name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest) while the bishop or priest continued to offer the remainder of the Anaphora. When the singing was done, everyone would again kneel down and await the conclusion of the Anaphora, the sung Amen, the sung Lord's Prayer and so forth.

3. It is not particularly unusual at the Divine Liturgy of Saint Basil to have a notable period of quiet while the bishop or priest offers his inaudible portions of the Anaphora. Oddly enough, though, it was and to a significant degree remains unusual in the several Ruthenian-Ukrainian jurisdictions to provide complete texts of the Divine Liturgy of Saint Basil for use by the people.

Fr. Serge

Here we tend to repeat the Holy Holy a number of times to fill the silence up. There is always an awkardness then this happens. The Diak keeps watch for some indication the priest is ready. Sometimes the singing is very very slow and there are pauses and then we resume with another round of Holy Holy.

Not to say that this may occur, but I have not been present at a celebration of the Liturgy of St Basil (Catholic or Orthodox) where the inaudbile portions of the Anaphora were prayed in a period of silence. Nor have I watched a televised broadcast of an Orthodox celebration of the Liturgy of Saint Basil where the inaudible portions of the Anaphora were prayed in silence. It may not be unusual, but it's not common.

As an aside...

In the Galician chant tradition there are special melodies - more elaborate - to be used during the Anaphora of the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil. This music is more than adequate to 'cover' the longer prayers and thereby avoid periods of silence, which are out of place in Eastern services. Unfortunately, most chanters do not use these melodies. Then again, there are clergy who, in parishes where the regular melodies are used, will stop the silent prayers when the congregation/choir have finished singing and carry on with the audible texts.

Haven't taken a survey, but it would surprise me to find that conservative Orthodox are overly enthused about televising the Divine Liturgy with no control over who may be watching it or under what conditions.

The magnificent and highly edifiying video-recording of the canonization of St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco does not give most of the Anaphora at all.

Fr. Serge

I thank Father Deacon John for his posts.

I ask him to reconsider some of what he has written. As Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) noted, in the West the quietly prayed Canon was �overlaid in part with meditative singing�. In the East it was usually overlaid entirely with singing. Father Deacon might be able to legitimately argue that there is a qualitative difference between a total silence and a silence overlaid with meditative singing, but he cannot get away from the fact that the faithful fully participate even when the Anaphora is prayed quietly. [This is the heart of the discussion as those who support the mandate for the priests to pray the Anaphora aloud have claimed that the people do not really participate when they don�t hear every word.]

Praying the Anaphora out of the hearing of the people is a type of silence. In the East this silence is overlaid with the meditative singing of the �Holy, Holy, Holy�, the �We Praise You� and the hymn to the Mother of God. In the West it was filled with the �Sanctus� and the rest. The principle of silence overlaid with meditative singing is the same, even though the overlays are not identical.

Father Deacon mentions that he hardly thinks the Holy Father is advocating a return of the Mass to the time when the people quietly prayed the Rosary (or other pious practices) to fill the time. He is quite right here. The Holy Father has described his ideas to create a proper filled silence � that the priest prays the first words of the various prayers as a cue to the people. Essentially that is what our traditional form does! As the priest intones the public parts of the Anaphora he is cueing the people as to where he is in his prayer (�Let us give thanks to the Lord� / �It is proper and just�, �Singing, shouting, crying out�, �Take, eat��, �Drink�, �We offer to You Yours of Your own�, �Especially � for the Mother of God�).

But Father Deacon fails to address my questions (those who support the revisions always seem to fail to answer the questions put to them):

-The custom of praying the Anaphora out loud is still considered an experiment in the Latin Church, one which the current Holy Father questions. Since there is not any evidence of fruit from this experiment (as Father David admitted with his call that it will take another generation for the fruit to grow) and since our Ruthenian liturgical tradition allows liberty, on what basis can anyone justify a mandate to pray these prayers out loud?

-Since we are suppose to keep custom with the Orthodox Church and this practice is only advocated by a tiny percentage of individual Orthodox priests (and is, in fact, prohibited by hierarchs in many if not most places) how can a mandate in a different direction serve unity? It seems once again the liberty offered by our Ruthenian liturgical tradition is best.

Its always nice to know where one is during Liturgy. Included in the above mentioned acclamations, we used to ring them handbells. We were too busy kneeling and praying the rosary.

It is typical of the liturgy for the deacon to remind the people to be attentive. But why is he mute during the Anaphora? Why no command to look alive!? At least we had handbells.

Why are prayers for Baptism and Crowning taken aloud, but not the entire Anaphora? I notice how 'aloud' aloud is when some parts of the Anaphora are taken aloud, but NOT ... and I shiver just thinking of it ... the epiclesis (never the epiclesis!). It seems to me that when we take parts of the Anaphora aloud, we cherry pick what meets the litmus test of the moment. Are we "less" Eastern? Then no Epiclesis. Are we Orthodox? Then Epiclesis aloud with blessings and Amens, but only bowed head during the Institution Narrative. If silent, then the olbigatory Words of Institution, the Kodak moment of Transubstantiation. Handbells too and the host lifted aloft for all to see. But no Anaphora in our liturgy is truly silent. Somewhere, someone decided to pick what parts were good enough to be taken aloud. These parts remind me of watching a movie where one person is on the phone talking to someone we can't see or hear. We only hear the responses. But responses to what? We are hiding an excellent opportunity to allow the liturgy become a school of prayer.

My inquiry is not into how we should pray the Anaphora by whose tradition and/or rubrics, but what is the NATURE of an anaphoric prayer?

When and where did we start messing with prayers like this?

The Anaphora is a beautiful prayer. One doesn't have to fully 'understand' it in order to appreciate it and learn from it. Is there a magical age of reason when the words of the Anaphora make sense? Aside from this century's version of tradition, what exactly IS the nature of the Anaphora? I would think that a silent Anaphora falls in the same boat as a private Baptism/Chrismation and Crowning. Where something should be public and celebrated, it is, instead, hidden under some falsely alleged aura of mystery and incense.

Joe

Joe - in one posting you raise many questions, but the questions are not bad so I'll take a crack at it.


The deacon is not mute during the Anaphora. It begins with the deacon's admonition "Let us stand aright, let stand well, let us attend to offer the holy oblation in peace!" If the diptychs were done in full (a rare event these days) we would hear more from the deacon during the Anaphora.


A fair question. One possible answer is that since these events are by their nature relatively rare, people are honestly unlikely to know what is going on unless it goes on out loud. A second might be that there does not seem to be the same temptation to abuse these texts for conjuring purposes.

As to the Epiclesis, I have attended Divine Liturgy in one or two Orthodox parishes where it is read aloud, with the "Amen" responses coming from the people - and this seems to be an anti-papal demonstration. Father Archimandrite Ephrem has commented negatively on this phenomenon more than once.

The Kodak moment of Transubstantiation? Having a taste for blasphemous humor, I enjoyed that line, but nevertheless I recommend against its use - it's likely to offend people (I myself wondered what a "Kondak" moment might be - and then I realized that "Kodak" was not a typographical erre!).

In any event, though, the whole idea of isolating a specific moment in the Anaphora as the Magic Moment of Transubstantiation is itself a Western distortion of the patristic understanding of what is going on - and leads directly to the Reformation error of cutting out the entire Anaphora except for the Institution Narrative.

At the risk of having people scream at me (I'm used to it!) I would suggest that the Divine Liturgy following the Dismissal of the Catechumens is not a school of prayer; it is prayer itself - and that is another matter. Mystification is not part of the Anaphora, but mystery is, and cultivating an aware adoration of what is happening invisibly is no bad thing to do.

As to understanding the Anaphora - on the one hand, it is no more than right that understanding should be encouraged in several ways, such as good preaching on the subject, and providing people with the relevant texts. But we must beware of a facile reductionism which would claim that so long as the Anaphora is done aloud and in the vernacular, there is no longer a problem of understanding - because, of course, there are many problems of understanding and some of them are linguistic. No matter how much one may "dumb down" the translation, there will remain passages that are not in day-to-day use and which are not readily grasped by much of anyone. Trying to go deeper into the Mystery is an assignment, not just for a lifetime, but for eternity.

Your question as to the nature of an Anaphoric prayer is legitimate and justified, but would require a lengthy answer (and I don't claim to have the entire answer). so at least for the moment, I pray thee hold me excused!

When and where did we start messing with the Anaphora? Surprise, surprise - the pressure to have the Anaphora aloud begin when the Latins began doing this. In other words, it's quite recent. That does not mean that nobody, ever, suggested such a thing previously - but it does mean that the Church, as distinct from certain heretical movements, did not see fit to do this in practice.

The Anaphora is most certainly a beautiful prayer, and we can cerainly learn from it - having spent all of the past fortnight working on a translation of an unusual variation of the Anaphora of the Liturgy of Saint Basil, I can assure anyone that the effort has heightened my appreciation of it. But the actual liturgical proclamation of the Anaphora during the Divine Liturgy is not a study session - there we are called to enter into the prayer, not to study it. Our study of the prayer is an excellent preparation, and an excellent reflection.

Is there an "age of reason" when one magically understands the Anaphora? Well, I'm 64 and I wouldn't claim to have reached such an age yet. I've spent much time in my life studying the Anaphora, and I know a few things about it, but a full understanding is and will probably remain beyond me. That doesn't inhibit me from praying the Anaphora and rejoicing in it.

The Church does not teach, and has not taught, that Baptisms and Weddings should be done privately. The Church does teach and has taught that the offering of the Anaphora in silence is no bad thing. Unless we are to take this as prima facie evidence that the Church has been wrong for well over a thousand years, it might be wise to spend some time reflecting on the differences which lead to these different approaches.

Here's a clue: whether the Anaphora is in silence, or aloud, or some combination of the two, the Priest may not offer the Divine Liturgy alone except in cases of dire emergency (such as a priest in prison who must serve the Liturgy by hismelf in order to be able to give Holy Communion to other prisnoers). It may seem like a contradiction in terms, but the Priest who offers the Anaphora silently is not offering the Anaphora privately.

Do you have something against incense?

Fr. Serge

//The deacon is not mute during the Anaphora. It begins with the deacon's admonition "Let us stand aright, let stand well, let us attend to offer the holy oblation in peace!" If the diptychs were done in full (a rare event these days) we would hear more from the deacon during the Anaphora.//

Dear Fr. Serge,

My question about muteness was in regard to the key moments when the crowd is told when things are happening � based on Mr. Administrator�s comments.

//� people are honestly unlikely to know what is going on unless it goes on out loud.//

Exactly! Otherwise, we have congregations that WILL find something understandable to do � like pray the rosary while Father so-and-so does his thing up there.

//A second might be that there does not seem to be the same temptation to abuse these texts for conjuring purposes.//

We proclaim the Scriptures publicly and it�s been abused and misused for centuries. What else is new? The Anaphora is a beautiful text teaching us about the economia of salvation � of God. We hear doxologies, which are very much ontological in orientation (since Basil changed it to counteract natural orthodox subordinationism). I find the silent Anaphora similar to Stephen�s long speech to the Sanhedrin where he taught the stiff-necked clerics a thing or two. Wonderful opportunities to learn the salvation of our Lord in His economia, yet we opt to silence the Anaphora, which is not a private priestly prayer, and truncate Stephen�s speech in our lexicon. What do we have against the economia?

//As to the Epiclesis, I have attended Divine Liturgy in one or two Orthodox parishes where it is read aloud, with the "Amen" responses coming from the people - and this seems to be an anti-papal demonstration. Father Archimandrite Ephrem has commented negatively on this phenomenon more than once.//

I�ve attended Orthodox liturgies where the Institution Narrative is recited by the priest with the congregation, but the Epiclesis taken silently. Anti-papal too? You see, I am not afraid of possible heretical abuses that might arise from the crowd, but from clergy who have their own agendas. One priest takes the Anaphora aloud, but skips the Epiclesis. Too Orthodox. How do we know our clergy are actually praying the Anaphora? If I say, �Amen,� what am I saying Amen to? Do you sign contracts without first reading it?

//In any event, though, the whole idea of isolating a specific moment in the Anaphora as the Magic Moment of Transubstantiation is itself a Western distortion of the patristic understanding of what is going on - and leads directly to the Reformation error of cutting out the entire Anaphora except for the Institution Narrative.//

Is it really magic that should be our concern or a subtle form of Gnosticism? The little people seem to be given the cold shoulder in what is really their work too. Doesn�t Liturgy imply work of the people or is their �work� just pray, pay, and obey? Are we just too stupid not to be clued in with what was written as Anaphoras? We too cut everything out publicly but the key moments. We are no different than the Reformers, but we tend to treat anaphoric prayer as private priestly prayers.

//At the risk of having people scream at me (I'm used to it!) I would suggest that the Divine Liturgy following the Dismissal of the Catechumens is not a school of prayer; it is prayer itself - and that is another matter. Mystification is not part of the Anaphora, but mystery is, and cultivating an aware adoration of what is happening invisibly is no bad thing to do.//

Our liturgies do act as a school of prayer, assuming that liturgy is more than the Divine Liturgy. There is always a cultic tendency in our church to emphasis the mystical aura of the priest at the expense of prayer and worship. We worship God, not liturgical hats and jewelry. God is mystery, not the secret rites of the clergy behind curtains. Sorry for my take on this.

//As to understanding the Anaphora - on the one hand, it is no more than right that understanding should be encouraged in several ways, such as good preaching on the subject, and providing people with the relevant texts.//

And saying it out loud so people can hear it. I don�t buy your excuse. We administer Communion to infants without asking them to read a theological treatise or two.

//But we must beware of a facile reductionism which would claim that so long as the Anaphora is done aloud and in the vernacular, there is no longer a problem of understanding - because, of course, there are many problems of understanding and some of them are linguistic.//

Reductionism? Saying the Anaphora out loud is reductionism? For some who are yelling, �Minimalism here and minimalism there� (in regards to the Antiphons) I find it odd that the argument would be made for a silent Anaphora in this way. Actually the Anaphora will take longer.

//No matter how much one may "dumb down" the translation, there will remain passages that are not in day-to-day use and which are not readily grasped by much of anyone. Trying to go deeper into the Mystery is an assignment, not just for a lifetime, but for eternity.//

Then don�t translate anything for fear of dumbing down. The Gospels were translated as well as our prayers. Why not the Anaphora? Our tradition was always to speak in the language of the people. Why ignore such traditions now for false fears?

//Your question as to the nature of an Anaphoric prayer is legitimate and justified, but would require a lengthy answer (and I don't claim to have the entire answer). so at least for the moment, I pray thee hold me excused!//

This was my ultimate question and you ignore it to comment elsewhere.

//When and where did we start messing with the Anaphora? Surprise, surprise - the pressure to have the Anaphora aloud begin when the Latins began doing this. In other words, it's quite recent. That does not mean that nobody, ever, suggested such a thing previously - but it does mean that the Church, as distinct from certain heretical movements, did not see fit to do this in practice.//

I meant when did we start taking it silently?

//The Anaphora is most certainly a beautiful prayer, and we can cerainly learn from it - having spent all of the past fortnight working on a translation of an unusual variation of the Anaphora of the Liturgy of Saint Basil, I can assure anyone that the effort has heightened my appreciation of it. But the actual liturgical proclamation of the Anaphora during the Divine Liturgy is not a study session - there we are called to enter into the prayer, not to study it. Our study of the prayer is an excellent preparation, and an excellent reflection.//

This is gobbledeegooklingo for clerical Gnosticism.

//Do you have something against incense?//

No. Just when it becomes the focus of our worship and not God.

God bless,
Cantor Joe Thur

Like anyone else, I can only answer a question in my own way. If you do not care for my choice of what to address in your list of questions, that is your privilege. It is my privilege to refrain from writing a full-blown dissertation on this Forum.

Fr. Serge

Father Serge wrote:
//� people are honestly unlikely to know what is going on unless it goes on out loud.//

To which Joe T responded:
Exactly! Otherwise, we have congregations that WILL find something understandable to do � like pray the rosary while Father so-and-so does his thing up there.

People will only find something else to do when they are poorly catechized.

The real problem here is that you and others are assuming that there is a problem that needs fixing without first having enough information to discern if there is a problem. When and why did the Anaphora start to be prayed quietly? We know that it happend while the liturgical language was still understandable by the people so the idea that it only went quiet after the people could not understand it is incorrect. As Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) stated: �It is no accident that in Jerusalem, from a very early time, parts of the Canon were prayed in silence and that in the West the silent Canon � overlaid in part with meditative singing � became the norm. To dismiss all this as the result of misunderstandings is just too easy.�

The solution to the specific problem you state is not in changing the Liturgy but in educating the faithful:

Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) wrote: �It really is not true that reciting the whole Eucharistic Prayer out loud and without interruption is a prerequisite for the participation of everyone in this central act of the Mass. My suggestion in 1978 was as follows. First, liturgical education ought to aim at making the faithful familiar with the essential meaning and fundamental orientation of the Canon. Secondly, the first words of the various prayers should be said out loud as a kind of cue for the congregation, so that each individual in his silent prayer can take up the intonation and bring the personal into the communal and the communal into the personal.

Joe Thur wrote:
The Anaphora is a beautiful text teaching us about the economia of salvation � of God. We hear doxologies, which are very much ontological in orientation (since Basil changed it to counteract natural orthodox subordinationism). I find the silent Anaphora similar to Stephen�s long speech to the Sanhedrin where he taught the stiff-necked clerics a thing or two. Wonderful opportunities to learn the salvation of our Lord in His economia, yet we opt to silence the Anaphora, which is not a private priestly prayer, and truncate Stephen�s speech in our lexicon. What do we have against the economia?

Joe, you are missing the whole point of worship here!

Worship is about worshipping � giving glory and thanksgiving to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Divine Worship is not primarily about people, and their need to learn. The Church Fathers � Basil, John Chrysostom and the others � did not give us a liturgy that focused primarily on teaching. They gave us a Liturgy which was oriented toward worshipping God. Many Protestants have little or no worship in their Sunday services and concentrate mostly on teaching. We are orthodox / Orthodox Christians. For us Divine Worship focuses � surprise! � on the Divine! The Liturgy of the Word (where there is teaching) is followed by the Liturgy of the Eucharist (where there is thanksgiving).

Joe Thur wrote:
I�ve attended Orthodox liturgies where the Institution Narrative is recited by the priest with the congregation, but the Epiclesis taken silently. Anti-papal too?

I take it that Joe means that the priest recited the first part of the Anaphora out loud and not that the congregation prayed this part of the Anaphora together with the priest!

But no, this would not be anti-papal. The rise of the praying the Epiclesis out loud is an abuse. It was a specific response to the West�s pointing to the moment of the Words of Institution as the specific moment when the change takes place. [The East only states that the change takes place during the Anaphora.]

Joe Thur wrote:
You see, I am not afraid of possible heretical abuses that might arise from the crowd, but from clergy who have their own agendas. One priest takes the Anaphora aloud, but skips the Epiclesis. Too Orthodox. How do we know our clergy are actually praying the Anaphora? If I say, �Amen,� what am I saying Amen to? Do you sign contracts without first reading it?

The proper response to an individual priest with an agenda is to bring the problem to his bishop.

Is Joe really worried that his priest is not praying the Anaphora at all when he does not hear it?

Joe, do you have a fullness of understanding of what takes place in the Anaphora?

If yes, you are way ahead of the Holy Father who says it is a Mystery.

If no, how can you say �Amen� to something you have heard but really don�t understand? Do you sign a contract that you have read even though you might not have any understanding of what all the legal phrases mean?

Me, I don�t need to hear the words in order to know they are true and say �Amen�. I participate fully whether I hear or don�t hear the prayers prayed by the priest. I participate fully whether I see or don�t see the action of the priest or not.

Joe Thur wrote:
Is it really magic that should be our concern or a subtle form of Gnosticism? The little people seem to be given the cold shoulder in what is really their work too. Doesn�t Liturgy imply work of the people or is their �work� just pray, pay, and obey? Are we just too stupid not to be clued in with what was written as Anaphoras? We too cut everything out publicly but the key moments. We are no different than the Reformers, but we tend to treat anaphoric prayer as private priestly prayers.

Magic? Gnosticism? For a practice that the Holy Father himself says is preferable to the current custom on the Latin Church? That�s not worth replying to.

The Divine Liturgy is the work of the people. Each has his part. The priest has his prayers. The deacon gives voice to our petitions to which we respond an affirming �Lord, have mercy� and other texts. That we do not hear every word of the priest does not mean we do not participate fully.

Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) wrote:It really is not true that reciting the whole Eucharistic Prayer out loud and without interruption is a prerequisite for the participation of everyone in this central act of the Mass. � [The silent anaphora] is at once a loud and penetrating cry to God and a Spirit-filled act of prayer. Here everyone does pray the Canon together, albeit in a bond with the special task of the priestly ministry. Here everyone is united, laid hold of by Christ, and led by the Holy Spirit into that common prayer to the Father which is the true sacrifice � the love that reconciles and unites God and the world.�

The private praying of the Anaphora prayers by the priest does not make them the private prayers of the priest. Go and reread what the current Holy Father has written (what I posted above is an excerpt).

Joe Thur wrote:
Our liturgies do act as a school of prayer, assuming that liturgy is more than the Divine Liturgy. There is always a cultic tendency in our church to emphasis the mystical aura of the priest at the expense of prayer and worship. We worship God, not liturgical hats and jewelry. God is mystery, not the secret rites of the clergy behind curtains. Sorry for my take on this.

The catechesis that comes from praying the Divine Liturgy comes from worshipping, not from studying during the worship. Again, it is the primary reason for Divine Worship.

I�m not sure about Joe�s comments about �the secret rites of the clergy behind curtains�. Is he suggesting that that the people need to see the action of the priest to be sure he�s doing what he is supposed to do? Is he suggesting that he can�t say �Amen� to something he has not seen and can be assured has happened? Is this a subtle call to take down the icon screen and have the priest stand behind the altar so that the people can see? That would be a logical extension (or next step) to the demand for a mandate to pray the Anaphora out loud.

Joe T wrote:
I meant when did we start taking it silently?

That�s the first legitimate question Joe has asked. As I have noted numerous times the full answer to all the questions on this issue needs to be found before the Church has a real understanding of the question why the Anaphora is prayed quietly. I recommend to Joe that he read what I posted from the Holy Father since it speaks to that. I will post a portion again:

Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) wrote: �It is no accident that in Jerusalem, from a very early time, parts of the Canon were prayed in silence and that in the West the silent Canon � overlaid in part with meditative singing � became the norm. To dismiss all this as the result of misunderstandings is just too easy.

Right now we know that the quiet praying of the Anaphora was not an accident but a purposeful development.

We know that when the Anaphora began to be prayed quietly while the liturgical language was still understandable.

We know that the Holy Father believes that dismissing the development as a mistake is too simplistic.

We know that the Holy Father allows liberty on the issue while preferring the praying of the Anaphora quietly.

We know that there have been those in the East at various times during the past thousand years or so who have advocated praying the Anaphora out loud but that the Church has always rejected the idea.

We know that the current push by a few to pray the Anaphora out loud did not exist before the Latins started doing so after Vatican II.

There is certainly much to learn and many questions to answer before we can begin to change anything.

Father Serge wrote:
//The Anaphora is most certainly a beautiful prayer, and we can certainly learn from it - having spent all of the past fortnight working on a translation of an unusual variation of the Anaphora of the Liturgy of Saint Basil, I can assure anyone that the effort has heightened my appreciation of it. But the actual liturgical proclamation of the Anaphora during the Divine Liturgy is not a study session - there we are called to enter into the prayer, not to study it. Our study of the prayer is an excellent preparation, and an excellent reflection.//

To which Joe T responded:
This is gobbledeegooklingo for clerical Gnosticism.

Again, Christians are primarily catechized by prayer, not by hearing or studying the texts of the prayers during Divine Worship. Divine Worship is about giving glory and thanksgiving to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is not about us. This is Liturgics 101.

I will again ask my questions (that no one supporting the Liturgical Revision seems willing to answer):

-The custom of praying the Anaphora out loud is still considered an experiment in the Latin Church, one which the current Holy Father questions. Since there is not any evidence of fruit from this experiment (as Father David admitted with his call that it will take another generation for the fruit to grow) and since our Ruthenian liturgical tradition allows liberty, on what basis can anyone justify a mandate to pray these prayers out loud?

-Since we are suppose to keep custom with the Orthodox Church and this practice is only advocated by a tiny percentage of individual Orthodox priests (and is, in fact, prohibited by hierarchs in many if not most places) how can a mandate in a different direction serve unity? It seems once again the liberty offered by our Ruthenian liturgical tradition is best.

I spivayet chor', AMIN!

Oddly enough, I dislike being quoted out of context. Here's the original exchange: Joe Thur wrote

quote:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Why are prayers for Baptism and Crowning taken aloud, but not the entire Anaphora?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And I replied:

"A fair question. One possible answer is that since these events are by their nature relatively rare, people are honestly unlikely to know what is going on unless it goes on out loud. A second might be that there does not seem to be the same temptation to abuse these texts for conjuring purposes."


Mr. Thur 'rsponded' with an out-of-context quote from that paragraph:


"people are honestly unlikely to know what is going on unless it goes on out loud."

Do excuse - or don't - but he has left out the condition: as is obvious from my full paragraph, which I have just provided, I wrote those words with quite specific reference to the celebrations of Baptism and Crowning, in response to his original question as to why those two Mysteries are done aloud, while the Anaphora is not. It would be an unusual parish in which the faithful regularly attend a Baptism and a Crowning each week. One hopes that the faithful attend the Divine Liturgy each week, and therefore are more thoroughly familiar with the Divine Liturgy each week.

Fr. Serge

Mr. Administrator, Thank you for publishing the Anaphora in your red pew books. They have added greatly to the liturgy, especially since our pastor takes it out loud. Your publication has helped in the needed catechesis. Our faith is not a secret faith.

Fr. Serge, it seems you are always being taken out of context. To me, you seem to be advocating Clerical Gnosticism. Compulsory celibacy became a tradition in the church too. Will you also advocate it? I think you are confusing the incomprehensibility of God (His immanence) - as mentioned in the Anaphora - with His economia. Are you saying that what God did for us is so incomprehensible that we shouldn't hear about it? Should we ask our clergy to stop preaching the Gospel because what Jesus did was so sacred that us poorly unenlightened folks should not hear of it? At one time, the church promoted the utmost sacredness of what THEY are doing that people stopped going to Communion. The people were too sinful to communicate. What went on in the altar stayed in the altar. If catechesis is what is needed, dear Father, then what exactly are you waiting for? Catechize us! What should we do or learn about the Anaphora to be permitted to hear it aloud? What does it take to be one of the illuminati?

Clerical gnosticism is just one aspect of the sickness of religion.

Joe