www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy My head is exploding. In the official Cantor's Companion

which is in many ways excellent, there is this footnote to the word s "the cantor must be a man or woman of prayer."

"Note: Although only adult men are ordained to the minor clerical order of lector/cantor, many women and young people have provided distinguished service as lay cantors. In this Cantor's Companion, the words 'cantor', 'he' and 'him' should be taken to refer to cantors of either gender."


So, we are going to divide our Church and drive people away in order to drop "man" from the creed, because it isn't inclusive, but the Cantor's Companion, published "with the blessing and approval of the Council of Hierarchs of the Byzantine Catholic Church sui juris, U.S.A.," uses traditional English!

God help us!

But they still show the same motivation with the note at the front, which somewhat negates that, don't you think?

It's just more of the wishy-washy-ness that we get from this poor translation. On one had we keep Theotokos, but on the other hand we are now incorporating inclusive language to alter historic practice that has stood the test of time. Faith has always stood in opposition to prevailing cultural trends.

To quote an article by Richard C. Leonard on why inclusive language won't work....

"To accept a mandate for inclusive language in the worship of God is to credit ourselves with greater spiritual insight than the prophets, who staked their lives and reputations on the integrity of the covenant. "Whatever else it is," to quote Woodward again, "religion is a symbol system and to change the the symbols is to change the meaning that religion expresses." We might want to think twice before we decide the Israelite prophets were wrong."

Pseudo-Athanasius, it makes my head want to explode too -- and I'm a woman! God help us, really!

One (or is it many?) of the threads in this forum have been critical of the lack of a full proskomedia, the widespread use of pre-cuts, etc. I guess this prevailing attitude should not be surprising. All that "stuff" is apparently just some extraneous fluff, since we find out on the bottom of Page 12 of the Cantor Companion that:

FYI

The original context of the article actually addresses inclusive language in reference to God. With this Leonard has a problem. The Liturgy does not use inclusive language in reference to God.

Horizontal inclusive language is not much of a problem for Leonard, except when rendered, "Each person should do it their own way." A plural pronoun should never reference a singular noun.

Yes, Deacon John, you are correct in what you read. The article talks more of our references to God (vertical inclusive language), than to mankind (horizontal inclusive language). However, all the same conclusions can be applied to inclusive language in general, especially when it comes to the wording of the Creed.

-- Inclusive language is bad theology, and is not the language of the Bible.

� Inclusive language is anti-Catholic, as it is a form of rebellion against traditional positions. This rebellion has seriously undermined the structure of marriage and family.

� Inclusive language positions our church alongside other neo-evangelical churches that change their worship according to which direction the wind is blowing. It's not the language that will bring us closer to orthodoxy.

� Inclusive language is motivated by external secular politics. Pure and simple, it�s being put in by feminists to advance their social agenda. By applying it to our Divine Liturgy, we are saying we agree with their agenda, whether it be feminism or homosexuality.

� Inclusive language liberalizes our Liturgy. It�s only purpose is to blur the lines between the roles of men and women. Again, advancing the agenda of feminism and homosexuality.

� Inclusive language in the Ruthenian Byzantine Liturgy only serves to open the Pandora�s Box so that these groups will, at a later point in time, dispense with the rest of the masculine references to God and Jesus Christ. Lenoard�s article will then fully apply.


Just read your bible, as the language couldn�t be any clearer if God had written it himself�..

Genesis 5:2 �Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created.�

Maybe we should buy bibles and hand them out to the feminists so they can better understand why we use the term "man" and who it applies to. Maybe that could be the start of evangelization for the Byzantine Ruthenian Church -- door-to-door visits on why we won't bend to radical groups.

Just my two cents.....

Glory to Jesus Christ!

I think you may be reading to much into this. The new people's Divine Liturgy book, in the first section entitled "Prayers of Preparation for the Divine Liturgy", describes the Proskomedia in brief (with no mention of it being performed at another time) and provides the pre-Communion prayers for the faithful at this point.

The next section is entitle "The Divine Liturgy" and begins "The faithful stand when the preparatory rites are completed."

But please look at the reason for the distinction in the Cantor's Companion. Before the initial incensation of the iconostas is the "time before the Liturgy"; people find their places, pray, light candles, and sing hymns which are NOT the ones prescribed for the Divine Liturgy. In most parishes (Catholic and Orthodox) I've attended, the posted "starting time" of the Divine Liturgy is closer to the incensation and exclamation, not the start of the Proskomedia. Note also that the Proskomedia ENDS with a dismissal, and the Ruthenian Ordo says that the priest COMMENCES with the exclamation "Blessed is the kingdom..."

The Proskomedia is important, and the new books at least mention and describe it; the old ones (like the 1978 service book) don't even mention it.

Yours in Christ,
Jeff Mierzejewski

I'm not claiming that a statement about "Blessed is the kingdom..." marking the beginning of the Divine Liturgy is somehow a new dogmatic proclamation.

I thought the line was unfortunate for two reasons. First, it seems both to indicate and foster a mindset that the proskomedia can be given short-shrift.

Secondly, the Cantor's Companion makes a point to discuss the daily cycle of prayers, the weekly cycle of commemorations, the use of the Typicon, and the portions of the Divine Liturgy. I can only conclude that this introductory material must have been added because some cantors lack this rudimentary knowledge. If so, then a teaching moment was lost.

Well... the Cantor's Companion deals with the material that involves singing. The Proskomedia... doesn't. I believe that also explains the other liturgics that are presented there; they all are involved with the cantor's responsbility in leading the people's singing.

There is a LOT of material that MIGHT have been presented - but only cantors would have seen it. We are in the process of adding a great deal of material to the Metropolitan Cantor Institute website , of general interest, and it will be announced here when available. Suggestions as to particular topics to cover would be welcome.

Yours in Christ,
Jeff Mierzejewski

I haven't checked against what is there, but some things which would be nice are

• Daily prayers/liturgical hours
• Text for reader's services without any clergy present (as their own separate document, not an annotated version of the whole thing)
• A selection of akathists and other services as well as recommendations for their use
• The Sunday readings (chanted if possible)
• Some common paraliturgical hymns

This shows how artificial gender-neutral language is. They probably translated the text accurately and then changed it to make it politically correct. Gender-neutral language is not only theologically incorrect it is offensive to the very nature of Christianity.

Our churches will be politically correct and empty.

You are correct.

When +Pope JPII and Pope Benedict have told us to go back to our roots they didn't mean to go back to having as few members as they had on Pentecost.

Monomakh

If it meant having a church of believers as faithful and God-inspired as those men and women present at Pentecost, I'd be all for it. Who better to evangelize the world?

Time will tell. The fruits of this revision will show itself in due time. I fear that it will all be rotten fruit on the secular feminist branches of the inclusive tree.

I thought that the office of Lector was a minor order whereas Cantor is not an order at all. Aren't the minor orders: acolyte, lector, and subdeacon?