www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy Revision is nothing new

"Orthodox, while reverencing this inheritance from the past, are also well aware that not everthing received from the past is of equal value. Among the various elements of Tradition, a unique pre-eminence belongs to the Bible, to the Creed, to the doctrinal definitions of the Ecumenical Councils: these things the Orthodox accept as something absolute and unchanging, something which cannot be cancelled or revised ..."
-- Bishop Kallistos Ware

"The Lord said, I am truth. He did not say, I am custom."
-- A Bishop at the Council of Carthage in 257

"There is a difference between "Tradition" and "traditions": many traditions which the past has handed down are human and accidental--pious opinions (or worse), but not a true part of the one Tradition, the fundmental Christian message.

It is aboslutely essential to question the past. In Byzantine and post-Byantine times, Orthodox have often been far tooo uncritical in their attitude to the past, and the result has been stagnation...."
-- Bishop Kallistos Ware

I would submit that doors and curtains belong to "tradition" and "custom" rather than Tradition.

Dear Deacon Paul,

As a fellow cantor who yesterday totally screwed up the Communion hymn by blinking and moving from Tone 4 to Tone 5 before getting back on track to Tone 4, I can sympathize. I've come to see these embarrassing mistakes as my own little way of making myself a "fool for Christ." It keeps me humble!

Sophia,

I really don't want to get into a spitting contest with these quotes vs. your quotes, but I've got a whole folder worth on my computer if that's where you want to go. Here's a small selection:

1) 1 Corinthians 11:2: ". . . keep the traditions, as I delivered {them} to you."

2) 2 Thessalonians 2:15: ". . . hold the traditions which you have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle."

3) 2 Thessalonians 3:6: "Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw yourselves from every brother that walks disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us."

The real question here is the same question as the other thread. Before I ask you the same question for the third time let's look at this logically.

In the 1940s Rome published and approved for us what to do. Whether you like it or not, our church has not been obedient to what Rome has published. There were and are rubrics in what Rome published regarding the curtain and the opening and closing of the Royal Doors. Once again, you may not like it, but the vast majority of our churches have not been obedient to this.

On this and others items published by Rome

Please answer this:

Why is a Catholic Church in communion with Rome in direct disobedience to the Congregation of Eastern Churches? Why has the Ruthenian Church decided all on its own to be flippant with the traditions that they vowed to uphold and preserve in the sacred Liturgy. Why is it that the bishops have taken it upon themselves to revise the Divine Liturgy contrary to the CCEO?


Do you only want obedience to take place the day the new liturgy is official? But not today, tomorrow, yesterday, or next week under the current conditions?

Monomakh

ps - maybe if there were deaconesses around we would have followed Rome? (that part is a joke)

And yet didn't the Oriental Congregation have a say in approving the particular law for the Metropolia, which mandated a new standard text of the Divine Liturgy, "adapted to modern times" - as well as in approving the resulting text?

Monomakh, I share your desire for a consistent use of the 1944 Ordo and the related books, but (a) the tradition "as passed on" in most of our parishes was NOT represented in these books, which muddies the waters a good bit until we decide what "reception of a tradtion" means, and (b) the bishops have in no way been given credit for the positive changes they HAVE made in the past ten years. The liturgy as celebrated now in all the parishes I attend is MUCH more complete than it was ten years ago.

Yours in Christ,
Jeff Mierzejewski

As the moderator to this section I am going to make a point on this section as an outsider. There are questions being posed, and yet not being answered but instead rounded or redirected. I am going to refuse to let this thread and the other threads progress unless the supporting documentation asked is supplied or the questions asked replied to in a knowledgeable way. These questions have been asked over and over and have been redirected or deflected to the shame of those doing it.

If these questions can not be answered by the support of documentation, then do not post a reply. I and many others that have been monitoring this section are tired of seeing these questions posed, only to be ignored. As the moderator to this section I am going to be taking a different tactic in order for this matter to progress forward. If the answers can not be properly answered, any reply posts will be simply deleted until the answers are forthcoming. This is my right as a moderator, and I am invoking it. Because I am disabled at the moment and at home working I can more closely monitor these discussions and will be tightly monitoring the discussions.

I know that this will not please many on either side, but I believe this is necessary for any of these discussions to progress. If this means that posters will know have to start doing their homework before posting, fine so be it! The emotional bantering and avoidance of the questions presented will stop in this section.

In IC XC,
Father Anthony+
Administrator

Sophia,

Thank you for the post. I like your quotes and have seen them before. Are you aware that Bishop Kallistos takes great care not to take it upon himself to change the official Liturgy? He also takes great care to follow the rubrics as exactly as is possible. I suggest that if you look at his quotes in the context of everything he has said and done on Liturgy you will see that he is certainly not advocating the picking and choosing of certain elements of the Byzantine Liturgy and discarding the others one might not like.

You seem to have attempted to reduce the whole discussion to one of the rubrics of the doors and curtain. I think this unwise. Might I suggest that you may have missed the entire point of the Vatican directives? We really cannot take it upon ourselves to decide what is important and what is trivial in Liturgy. Prior generations believe that icon screens were unimportant and got rid of them. Do you believe that each generation ought to revise the Liturgy according to its own taste? I hope not (and I hope you will answer this question directly). I think that we need to embrace a faithful and total renewal of our official liturgical tradition and then, if we believe changes are appropriate, work with all of Orthodoxy to enact them (as the Vatican requires).

Please check out the Liturgical Instruction:

Rediscovering full fidelity to our own liturgical tradition means bringing our Church to a full and faithful liturgical life that uses the official standard for the Ruthenian recension. The proposed reform is clearly in violation of the Vatican directive. The 1964 'Red Book' Liturgicon may have a few typos and flaws but it is in full fidelity to our own liturgical tradition. The proposed Revised Liturgy is not in full fidelity to our official liturgical tradition.

Also check out:
We saw in the news a few weeks back that the Synod of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church mandated its clergy to teach the faithful about such important documents as the Ordo Celebrationis, the Liturgy Constitution of Vatican II, the Vatican II Decree on the Eastern Churches, the Apostolic Letter Orientale Lumen and the Instruction for Applying the Liturgical Prescriptions of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches. They are taking the Vatican documents seriously and are not revising our liturgical tradition and instead are teaching it and striving to follow it. Even Bishop Milan of Uzhorod has joined this effort. The Vatican documents are pretty clear in telling us what our liturgical tradition is and that we are obligated to follow it.

Do you agree with the Vatican that we ought to respect our liturgical tradition and follow it? If not, what references can you provide that tells our Church that we no longer have an obligation to follow both the letter and spirit of the Vatican directives?

John

PS: The Liturgical Instruction be found at www.byzcath.org/faith/documents/instruction.htm [byzcath.org] for your reference.

Jeff,

"Adapted to modern times" needs to be understood in the totality of the context of all the Vatican documents.

"Adaptation to modern times" is to be understood in part as the admittance of changes occurring through organic progress. Byzantines typically legitimize organic progress by adding long established customs to the liturgical books many years after they have been accepted. One cannot mandate organic progress in advance.

Certainly the proposed changes advance neither the goodwill or unity of Christians. No other Byzantine Church (Catholic or Orthodox) is officially revising the Liturgy along the lines of the proposed revision.

In what way does the proposed reform bring our liturgical celebration closer to that of Orthodoxy that our official Ruthenian recension Liturgy does not?

In what way does the proposed reform bring our liturgical celebration closer to that of other Byzantine Catholics of the Ruthenian Recension (i.e., Ukrainians, Slovaks, Romanians, Hungarians and etc.) that our official Ruthenian recension Liturgy does not?

We have two Orthodox hierarchs in this country that have indicated a willingness to work together for both liturgical unity (using the official Ruthenian recension as the standard and simply providing elegant English translations as a common standard in the English speaking world). In what way does the proposed reform accomplish this? I don't think that it accomplishes the intent of the Liturgical Instruction at all. In fact, going our own way to create a "Third Way" violates the Liturgical Instruction. In fact, it hinders the unity that already exists between our Churches and increases the distance between us rather than reducing it.

a) Why does there need to be a decision on what the reception of our tradition means? We have the official books and were directed to raise our liturgical celebrations to match them. The Liturgical Instruction is very clear in telling us the path to follow.

b) Yes, in some places the bishops have made much progress in bringing the standard closer to the official books. They are to be credited for this. Yet in other places they have ordered the Liturgy to be changed away from the standard. At the parish I belong to here in Virginia the liturgical mandates has made the Liturgy much LESS faithful than it was 10 years ago.

I am very glad that you support the consistent use of the Ordo Celebrationis. I hope you will let your pastor and bishop know this. Each and every member of our Church has a responsibility to encourage our bishops to do what is right. In this case what is right is for us to finally embrace the fullness of our official Ruthenian Liturgy and all it to form our Church.

John

Post deleted by Father Anthony

John,
Thanks for posting the reference "Instruction for Applying the Liturgical Prescriptions.....'

I will have to look them over and re-read "Ordo Cebrationis" before I can post anymore about the details of any changes, modification, revisions, reinterpretation, etc.

Have you seen the new rubrics? I assume that you have but I have not, so I can't respond to those comments.

On a lighter side, Sofia, I thought of myself as a "fool for Christ" too, especially when we began to celebrate the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts about 10 years ago and I tried to cantor it, like the blind leading the blind. I thought that I was the only one. (Where are those smilies?)

Father Deacon Paul