www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy The Audible Anaphora

Here's an Orthodox perspective on the audible anaphora:

Saying Amen to Our Story [siciliaortodossa.org]

This is a very interesting essay--thank you Fr Deacon.

I am curious--could someone report whether the UGCC, Melkites, and Romanians say the anaphora aloud or silently? I am particularly interested in how the revisions that the Melkites are to promulgate soon will look in this regard.

Thanks.

John:

I am only familiar with the practice of the Melkite parish in Phoenix. The Anaphora is prayed/chanted aloud. This is the practice even when Bishop John or Archbishop Cyrille clebrates the DL.

I have attended a Hierarchal Divine Liturgy celebrated by Bishop John (Melkite). I do not recommend following his Liturgical Practices.

Dear Father Deacon,

The only comment I care to make on the
is that it is not recognized by any normal Eastern Orthodox Church.

Fr. Serge

A more organic process for this change would have been to provide for the praying of the Anaphora aloud without requiring that it be done so in all cases.

You failed to read that the article did not originated with the host website. So that no one would question the Orthodoxy of the author, I've posted a link to the original article below. I apologize for the confusion.

Fr. John Shimchick is pastor of Holy Cross Church, Medford, NJ, and editor of Jacob�s Well, an official publication of the Diocese of Washington and New York (OCA), the primatial diocese of the OCA, whose head is Metropolitan Herman. As noted on the web page, this article was original published in Jacob�s Well, Spring/Summer 2000:

Saying Amen to Our Story, Jacob's Well [jacwell.org]

Actually, I read the article and noted that it originated with OCA circles. But it is unwise to associate respectable writing with an unrespectable source, even a secondary source.

Fr. Serge

Why do you say so? Please give examples

Glory be to Jesus Christ!

From the Eparchy of Newton's website: http://www.melkite.org/Questions/W-6.htm
http://www.melkite.org/Questions/W-5.htm

A little of my own experience with hearing the anaphora aloud:

When I have been to Divine Liturgy at Melkite churches before, including their cathedral outside of Boston, the anaphora has been said aloud (however, it has been prayed in secret every time that I have been to Holy Transfiguration in McLean, VA).

I know that in the Eparchy of St. Josaphat in Parma (UGCC), the "official policy" is that the priest is supposed to chant the entire anaphora aloud. I have been to other UGCC outside of the Eparchy of Parma where this has also been done (including St. Elias in Brampton, although not the entire anaphora in that case).

Mark T.

I think either way is fine, but I personally prefer aloud.

How does one define "a more organic process"?

Emperor Justinian forbade the abuse of reciting the anaphora "in secret", but his attempt failed. In time, praying the anaphora audibly was suppressed. How is the suppression by mandate "a more organic process" than the restoration by mandate?

see The Reasons for and the Dates of Re...iturgical Prayers with Secret Recitation [jacwell.org]

And everyone gathered around in house churches receiving the Eucharist in their hands without any codified order other than reading some letters of their choice, saying some prayers, and then celebrating the Eucharist. Since this is older, she would mandate the change?

Since we are not living in the time of the Emperor Justinian (more's the pity, perhaps, for other reasons, but that's how it is!), we needn't worry about his legal ruling overmuch, though we may note that the results were not exactly brimming with success.

In this present year of grace, when we no longer call in the secular arm to enforce rubrics, and when we have come to appreciate the importance of allowing change to take place organically, it is certainly more effective, as well as more peaceable, to try to make sure that there is enough sentiment in favor of the proposed change to give it a trial, and then make it facultative, not mandatory. Simply attempting to impose a change by decree often backfires.

Fr. Serge

Perhaps we should be discerning about saying "amen" to the Holy Spirit. Even after civil mandates the silent Anaphora still came to be the norm, and has been for centuries, all of the liturgical opinions to forceably turn that on its head notwithstanding. Where do we cross the line of demarcation between a false anachronism with pastoral prudence?

Perhaps that is the organic development after all, as in spite of such forced attempts it has persisted - East, West, and in between - and even become the norm for many, many centuries. I don't know of any mandates in support of the forced silent (or "low voice") taking of the Anaphora to compare with that of Justinian's for the audible.

If the forced audible taking of the Anaphora was such an efficacious and necessary practice...why would it have fallen into diseuetude? The answers given are not completely satisfactory. As I mentioned I am not opposed to either the silent or aloud taking of the Anaphora, but in the intolerant and facile mandates which never worked in the past.

No Vespers, No Matins, No Blessings with the Trikeri and Dikeri, Pre Cut Prosphora with no Anti Doran, the Church he was visiting used the organ, Bishop John gave a lousy wordly Sermon in which he praised the Prime Minister of the Netherlands (she was present) and gave her a special seat in the front pew, then he called the Second Vatican Council "the last Ecumenical Council that we've had so far" and tried to relate it to the Sunday of the Fathers of the Six Ecumenical Councils (the Feast that was being celebrated) etc. etc., (I am not knowledgeable about who is proper to commerate during the Great Entrance, but it still bothered me how much the Prime Minister of Netherlands was praised and comemerated during the Great Entrance), Audible Anaphora, etc. etc. etc.

I've been honored to serve with Patriarch Gregory III and with Bishop John (retired Eparch of Newton), and with the thrice-blessed Patriarch Maximos V of Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem and All the East, on a fair number of occasions. I've never heard any of them pronounce the Anaphora aloud, make any reference to the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, or engage in any other bizarre liturgical practice.

Fr. Serge

The reason Justinian asked for the anaphora to be taken aloud has nothing to do with the reason Fr. David thinks it should be taken aloud.

Justinian was interested in testing the orthodoxy of his clergy. We wanted to hear the anaphora, to be certain that the trinitarian prayers were orthodox, and that the teaching about Christ was orthodox, so that he could be certain that he was taking communion from an orthodox bishop.

I don't think Fr. David is concerned with the orthodoxy of the Byzantine Catholic clergy (but maybe he should be)? Fr. David wants the laity to 'hear and understand' the prayer, and know what they are affirming in their 'Amen.'

I think, in our Church, very soon, we are going to re-discover why the anaphora became silent over the centuries. While I understand Fr. David's concern, my experience of hearing the anaphora out loud has not been educational, edifying, uplifting, reverent, or even prayerful.

Our priests just can't do it. It is disturbing, but you hear the priest speaking these prayers, and it is hard to understand them. It makes me wonder if the priest (oh yeah, 'celebrant' in the revised Liturgy) the celebrant himself, really understands the prayer himself. Maybe he does, but doesn't know how to lead the prayer.

The result is... far from paying attention to the prayer, we are forced to pay attention to the priest (I'm sorry, the celebrant) and his own interpretation, understanding, or lack of understanding, of what he is proclaiming. The focus is off the prayer, off the action, off the mystery, and squarely ON THE PREIST/CELEBRANT.

I think we are going to find that this experiment isn't going to last long, for the same reason that Justinian's rule in this matter was not observed.

A silent anaphora means, I don't have to suffer the celebrant's dramatic interpretation of it. Silently, it speaks for itself, speaks more clearly, it is the prayer of the whole Church, and not the prayer of the 'celebrant' or the victim of his interpretations, and so I am not disturbed giving my assenting Amen.

Nick

Dear Nicholas,

Actually, Father Casimir Kucharek's assessment is that the switch to a silent anaphora was for reasons of economy of time (in other words, to shorten the Liturgy); he refers to the other contemporary reasons given for it as "frankly unconvincing." It's quite possible, of course, that we will return to a silent anaphora for the same reason: people don't want long services.

Jeff

Yes, it is longer now, primarily due to the fact that most of the formerly inaudible prayers of the priest are now taken aloud.

Just as an aside, I wonder what the determining factor(s) was(were) to mandate which priestly prayers are to be now taken aloud and which were to remain inaudible.

While I certainly respect Fr. Kasimir of blessed memory's great work on the Divine Liturgy (and use several of his books teaching), I am equally as unconvniced that the SOLE reason was length of service. All of the other litanies, antiphons, etc. were taken in their entirety and the resulting additional length from the Anaphora would not have been that significant.

I don't think Father Casimir is right about that.

I think the reason that the anaphora became silent, is that the Holy Spirit wanted it to be prayed that way. Perhaps only he can give his reasons?

Nick

Fr Robert Taft, S.J., gave these answers during the following dialogue:



from a transcript of the third Q and A session during the 2005 Paul G. Manolis Distinguished Lecture Series, Patriarch Athenoragos Orthodox Institute as published in Robert F. Taft, S.J., Through Their Own Eyes: Liturgy as the Byzantines Saw It, (InterOrthodox Pres, Berkeley,CA, 2006).

John K-

I had posed that very same question to my pastor some years ago (in the Eparchy of Van Nuys, the chanting/praying of the Anaphora aloud predates my entry into the Church which was 13 years ago), and his reply then was in line with that which Fr Taft states above: prayers to which the assembly responds, "amen" are chanted/prayed aloud. The prayers which are prayers of the clergy are prayed quietly by the main celebrant.

I find my head swimming with Fr. Taft's amorphic presentation as time goes on - first we used to take all of the prayers aloud, yes these should be taken aloud, no those should not be taken or don't have to be taken aloud, and finally it's foolishness to think that all the prayers should be said aloud. Let the developed practice speak for itself as well, and let no ridiculous mandate (which have all failed in the past) trump pastoral prudence.

And I do think some prayers are "for God", they are not all humanistic exercises in psychological self-pacification.

Yet in the RDL, the prayer than concludes the Litany of Frevent Supplication has with it a rubric for the celebrant to "say quietly."

Therefore I don't think the quoted principle above was used or at least not used consistently.

We certainly say "Amen" to the prayer before the Trisagion, yet that one is said inaudibly. And obviously, since the litanies between the Antiphons are gone, the prayers of the second and third antiphons should be inaudible since our "Amen" is missing.

What gives? What was the criteria?

As an aside, when we were between pastors the last time, we had a visiting priest serving for us. He rotated the prayers of the first, second, and third antiphons each week in the place of the prayer of the first antiphon at the end of the Litany of Peace. I thought that was most creative of him.

There are four prayers in the Divine Liturgy that particularly belong to the priest:
1) the prayer before the gospel
2) the prayer of the cherubicon
3) the prayer during the "Amen" of the Prayer of the Bowing of Heads ( = before giving Communion)
4) the Prayer before the consummation of the gifts.

These prayers are private prayers that the priest says before performing sacred actions: the gospel, the Great Entrance, the Communion, the consummation of gifts - even though they are usually actions of the deacon (except giving Communion). The priest presides over and takes part in them. They are not and were not said aloud. Interestingly, they are all addressed to Christ (the Eternal High Priest), in counter-distinction to the usual practice in the Byzantine Liturgy of addressing prayers to the Father. Privacy may also be true of the Prayer of the Third Antiphon and the First Prayer of the Faithful (said privately by the priest when the deacon offered the litany). In the Prayer of the Cherubicon, the priest prays for himself in the first person singular. These are the prayers Fr. Taft is referring to.
The Council of Hierarchs did not mandate the praying of all the other presbyteral prayers aloud, though essentially they are for the whole community, they concentrated instead on the Prayers of the Eucharistic Liturgy, beginning with the Prayer after the Great Entrance. They did not seem to want to restore all the prayers audibly at once.
There are other such private prayers of the priest outside the Divine Liturgy, as for example, in baptism, during the litany of peace as the priest prepares to baptize, and probably originally the fifth prayer of anointing of the sick, which has now become public.
Nicholas theorizes that Justinian commanded the prayers as a test of Orthodoxy. This is not what Justinian says: "... so that the souls of the hearers would be brought to a greater piety, praise and blessing because of them." (Novella 137)
Diak's piety is admirable, that we do some things not for ourselves, but "for God," but this is not what Fr. Taft means. It would be obvious hubris to think that anything we do, or any prayer we offer, would be something God needs, or would add to God. In short, everything that we do is done by God's grace and by God's power and by God's wisdom, and it saves - or shall we say, deifies - us. Even prayers that are purely of glory to God do not add to God's glory, but are for our salvation and deification. God does not need us to tell us how good he is, or what he has done for us. We say this for our understanding. This is true even of the "inexpressible groanings" uttered in our soul by the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:26) All divine action in synergy with us is "for us" and not "for God," though obviously in his love for us God wishes the salvation of all. That is simply the very nature of creation, and we do not know God in his inner being, but only in his energies, in his action in our behalf, in his revelation to us. This is why God took the human nature, it is simply what the mystery of the Incarnation is about.

The concept of doing various things - including praying - "for God" has been with us for a very long time, and is unlikely to go away in the future. I would readily agree that this is a mysterious concept, but there is a great distance from "mysterious" to "mistaken".

The Bible itself repeatedly urges us to pray, and to do everything for the glory of God.

In view of the tradition and Scripture involved, it seems a bit strange to assert that we are praying, not to tell God what He already knows, but to tell ourselves (to tell ourselves what we already know?).

When we recount in prayer the marvelous works of God, we are not reminding God of something that He may have forgotten - we are praising God, which, again, is a custom as old as prayer itself.

Fr. Serge

This morning, I read Saturday's epistle to the Romans, "if we live, we live for the Lord." (Romans 14:8) So I guess I owe Diak an apology (at least a partial apology). "For" can have different meanings. What I said stands, we don't pray for ( = the benefit) of God. We can live and act "for" (that is, out of motivation for) God, rather than "for" our own selfishness or "for" earthly or material benefits, which is what I think St. Paul meant. At any rate, secret prayer for God's benefit remains a self-contradiction. If we live "for" the Lord, we live in Gof's presence in our lives.

Even if secret prayer for God's benefit remains a contradiction (presumably because it is doubtful whether we can really "benefit" God), it remains true that the Gospel enjoins secret prayer upon us - though not necessarily in a liturgical context.

Fr. Serge

Father Bless!

Fr David you wrote:


I have a Western mentality. Please forgive me where I err in Eastern theology and in Western theology. Here is my thinking, correct me as needed.

Now I can surely agree to the fact that I cannot add to GOD�S glory in anything I think, say or do. To say �All divine action in synergy with us is �for us� and not �for GOD�..." is confusing to me. At Divine Liturgy, I thought we are not the doing, although we participate, Jesus is the one offering. I always thought Jesus, the GOD-man, is acting through the priest. The priest is an instrument and the offering is offered to the Father. If it is Jesus� action then it is �for GOD�, because the action is GOD. I cannot separate Jesus� sacrifice from �for GOD� because He is GOD and everything He does is for GOD, otherwise we would have a contradiction. The contradiction would be GOD doing something that doesn�t bring glory unto Himself. Jesus� action, not the priest nor mine, glorifies GOD. I can participate and unite my self to His will. Divine Liturgy is "for GOD" and "by GOD" to the glory of GOD. It is all HIM, and He invites me to share in the mystery.

So, I say it is �for us� and �for GOD�. The goal of "for us" is ultimately "for GOD" not "by us" but "by GOD". It's all Him, from beginning to end.


O Son of GOD, wondrous in Your Saints, save us.

Diak is absolutely correct. God has no need of our prayers. But still the prayers are �for God�. And Diak is also correct that the prayers of the Liturgy are not �all humanistic exercises in psychological self-pacification� (Ratzinger / Benedict XVI and others speak of the 1970s efforts in the Latin Church to move worship from being God-centered to man-centered, a mistake that the Latins are trying to correct but was copied in the 2007 Ruthenian RDL).

The worship that is given to God is for God not because He somehow needs it or that anyone can add to God (and I do not think anyone here has actually put forth the argument Father David is responding to, though Taft may have been speaking in that context).

If one states that liturgical prayer (esp. the Anaphora) is "for us" it must be in the context of "for us but not about us". It is "for us" in that it has the four main points of worship: praise, adoration, petition and thanksgiving. It is "for us and for God" in that it is our duty to worship God.

Our praise is to God.
Our adoration is to God.
Our petition is to God.
Our thanksgiving is to God.

It�s not about us. It�s not about our education. It�s about God.

Of course you are right, John. I am a bit surprised in the horizontality present in Fr. David's responses. I am concerned we are seeing a theological redirection before us with the emphasis not on God but on "us". I reject such a notion, all patronizing comments regarding my piety aside.

God may not need prayer (I would say to even speculate what God needs or doesn't need is approaching a very western determinism and not in keeping with apophatic theology) but He certainly wants us to pray to Him if we are to believe the corpus of Scripture as well as the examples of our Lord, the apostles and the saints, with the resulting prayer indeed "for God", for without God we cannot even have being.

As Fr. Basil Shereghy said in his 1961 commentary on the Divine Liturgy (which, interestingly enough, is based on the full Liturgy as indicated in the Ordo),

Father Deacon Randy,

Good quote from Father Basil Shereghy. To bolster it I am reposting Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI). It is an excerpt of a speech in which he touched (lamentingly) on how the East maintained that the sole intent of the Divine Liturgy was to �be before God and for God�, and how the West lost this when it introduced a number of man-centered ideas. I quote Ratzinger repeatedly because he is speaking to the very mistakes made by the Latins that are now also made in the 2007 RDL.

The 2007 RDL, which has a number of rubrics that were first introduced in Parma in 1988 and Passaic in 1995, makes �the instructive element in the Liturgy, the effort to make it understandable even for outsiders, the primary criterion of the liturgical form.� People see that the emphasis has shifted away from the elements of praise, adoration, thanksgiving and petition to instruction (Father David, in a recent post, termed this that they are �for the whole community�). Father David�s horizontal choice of words noted by Diak is evidence of the anthropocentric error in the theology of the Revision. Worship is not �for the whole community� but �from the whole community�. Worship is not for us, per say, but is from us (it is our praise to God, our adoration of God, our thanksgiving to God and our petitions to God). The huge shift in liturgical emphasis (from being centered on being before God and participating in the Divine Light that descends to being an instrument �for the whole community�) is precisely what causes people to walk away (and we have seen exactly this with the earlier reforms). The faithful see that human aims have been introduced into the Liturgy and that it is no longer only about being before God and for God.

John

I have witnessed parts of the anaphora being said aloud in various Orthodox jurisdictions I've visited, such as the local Antiochian mission.

There is one way in which we �do something �for� God.� Our Lord put it in a �horizontal perspective� by telling the sheep at the Last Judgment, �Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.� (Matthew 25:40)
It is regrettable that my remarks are twisted to make me say that we should not be concerned with our �vertical� relationship with God. Is it not obvious that, as creatures, we do not enter into the �inner life� of God? Is it not obvious that the Liturgy is a manifestation of the mystery of the Incarnation, �Take, eat; this is my body which is broken FOR YOU for the remission of sins ... do this in memory of me?� Yes, we owe God pure praise and glorification; yes, we need to put aside our cares and turn to God; and yes, we need to care for one another and not selfishly care only for ourselves. In so doing, we can find God but this is God�s gift to us, for �God so loved the world that he sent his only-begotten Son .... � Can we possibly have enough humility to be aware that even in glorifying God, he is the one acting in us, and praying with us, and deifying us - for to praise God is somehow to become �God-like.� Yes, the Divine Liturgy is �for the whole community,� in it God acts �for� the community. To deny that is to empty the Liturgy of its meaning. And yet I am accused of being a party to �anthropocentric error.� Hardly, my friend.
Please do not accuse me of preaching - I admit it, I�m a priest and it�s what I do. As a priest, I also say prayers that are not designed to inform God of who he is and what he has done, but to proclaim to one another, in words of glorification, in an act of charity - for Christ himself said that his greatest work was that �the poor have the good news proclaimed to them,� (Matthew 11:5) - of the presence of God in our worship. The prayers are composed for our hearing, to uplift - �Let us lift up our hearts!� - ourselves to God - �to offer [our] bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship.� (Romans 12:1) Our very act of glorification is an act of charity to one another!
What, indeed, is wrong with hearing the words of the Anaphora? Are you, John, saying that whenever we hear informative words that this is instruction and not prayer? I have pointed out that when the catechumens had been dismissed, then the anaphora was proclaimed - because the unbaptized, the not �fully catechized� did not have the right to hear these words. You did not answer that question. I say it again - the faithful have a right to hear the words to which they say �Amen.� The Christian faith is not obscurantist.
Our petitions are certainly for "us" and "for one another." We do not ask for "stuff" "for" God, but from God as the loving God, who knows what we need even before we ask.

Reverend Father David, Bless.

Thank you for reminding us to listen to the Word of God.
And thank you for your own edifying words on this subject.

We should remember that in iconography the mouths depicted are slightly smaller than human perspective, and that the ears depicted are slightly larger than human perspective.

We are to listen to the Word of God more than we are to speak our own selves. It's that point of view of God over self that, although difficult, we are called to strive for.

Deacon El

Dear Father David,

What, indeed, is wrong with taking them quietly?

Nothing. Nothing is wrong with taking them quietly. To suggest that there is something wrong with the Liturgy if I don't hear the priest praying the anaphora out loud, is to doubt that the Holy Spirit was guiding the tradition of the Church and the evolution of our Liturgy over the last 1500 years.

I know the Holy Spirit was guiding the tradition of the Church's liturgy for the last 1500 years, and that grace has abounded and a magnificent Liturgy is our sacred treasure. Not only in its words, but in its sacred balance, movement, proportion and beauty.

I do not know that the Holy Spirit was guiding the work of the Liturgy committee, and the priests who have invented this change, and the bishops who have mandated it. I have serious doubts, because it is out of balance, the movement is halting, and the beauty is obscured. Was the Holy Spirit directing the committee? Time will tell....

Nick

Apparently around 1950, the Holy Spirit began guiding the Church to say the Liturgy in the vernacular. I think He is now guiding it to say the Anaphora aloud.
Of course, we could say that putting the Liturgy into the vernacular was a mistake in the first place, which I think some would like to claim. This would render this whole section of the Forum rather a moot point.

Dear Father David,

The vernacular and saying the anaphora in the hearing of the congregation are not equivalent.

As far as I am aware, celebrating the Liturgy in the vernacular has always been a tradition of the Eastern Churches? Didn't the Romanians, Arabs, Hungarians, etc. etc. all take the Byzantine Liturgy into their own languages? The Holy Spirit didn't begin this work in the 1950s?

But all of them took this duty of translation very seriously, and preserved the rubrics, the prayers, and the shape of the Liturgy, providing accurate, careful, literal, faithful, and poetic translations of the inherited texts.

This is the first time that the translators have felt 'free' to redesign, remake, and recreate the liturgy according to agendas and trends of the culture and age. Why can't we have a Liturgy that faithfully translates into English, the Liturgy we inherited from our fathers?

Nick

All that comes to my simple mind is "Liturgy - the work of the PEOPLE" which could be interpreted as being created by the people and for the people! This controversial discussion will go on and on.

'Liturgy' does not mean 'work of the people'. It comes from a very specific Greek word meaning the 'work of one man, on behalf of and for the people'.

I thank Father David for his post.

I invite Father David to clarify his use of the quote from Matthew. Just how does the Lord�s call to care for the least of our brothers support Father David�s desire for a mandate to unilaterally change the Liturgy (apart from the rest of Byzantium) for the priest to pray the presbyteral prayers aloud?

There has been no twisting at all. Father David has not offered any sound theological justification for the mandates he has sought and won. But what he has offered has been all about reworking the Liturgy so that men might get more out of it (education, understanding, etc. � the essence of 1970s horizontalism that the Latin Church is now trying to correct with the 'reform of the reform' because it didn't work). The addition of horizontal elements necessarily affects the vertical (participation in the Divine Light). Father David ignores the evidence that parishes that celebrated the Liturgy according to the official Ruthenian recension have the fruit of vibrancy and growth while the parishes that celebrated the 1988 Parma reforms and the 1995 Passaic reforms lacked such positive fruit.

Father David seems to have not read anything I have posted on this subject. I have argued against a mandate and for liberty. I have never argued that a priest should be prohibited to pray these prayers aloud. Saying that there are didactic elements in the Divine Liturgy and seeking a mandate to revise the Liturgy to make it more didactic in accordance with a 1970's theological agenda popular in some circles of liturgists are two entirely different topics. Father David has yet to explain why he militates against liberty, and why he is so opposed to allowing the official and authentic Ruthenian Liturgy to be our standard (with the liberty for the Spirit to lead the Church in the possible evolution of rubrics). [This is an especially important question, since he is copying a rubric from the Latin Church (to pray the Anaphora aloud) which the Latin Church is now rethinking because it has not borne the fruit that was desired.]

Father David has been asked a number of questions that he refused to respond to. I hope he does eventually choose respond to them. I repost the primary one here:

Why, Father David, are you so implacably opposed to the idea that the official Ruthenian Recension of the Divine Liturgy should be used in liturgical practice?

The two posts - Number 248337 on �Implementing the New Liturgy,� (which I shall call �thread A�)and 248408, �Audible Anaphora� (which I shall call �thread B�) are interrelated, so I have chosen to respond here because I think the �audible anaphora� is such an important issue.

In thread A, John notes of Kellie�s and Rufinus� posts that �they respond as if the issue is one of personal attack against those who have prepared the revision,�

In thread B he says,

Father David �ignores the evidence that parishes that celebrated the Liturgy according to the official Ruthenian recension ... �
�Father David seems to have not read anything I have posted on this subject.�
�Father David has yet to explain why he militates against liberty.�
�Father David has been asked a number of questions that he refused to respond to.�
�[the translation] ... is full of mistakes and agendas.� (Mistakes anyone can make, but agenda implies insincerity)

I draw your attention to the debating techniques used.

Ignored??? I know of Columbus and Aliquippa. Columbus has followed the literal Ruthenian Recension (well, actually an English translation of it, but let us not quibble) for many years and is stable. Many parishes that follow the Parma text of 1987 are stable or growing also. Aliquippa grew dramatically, and it warms my heart that people will flock to church if a fuller liturgy is offered, but is it only the Liturgy - or is it in combination with the pastoral care and love the pastor gave after many years of neglect. Not that I fault Msgr. Simodejka, Fr. Elias� predecessor, he was old and infirm and could not offer the services that Fr. Elias was able to. I also know of other parishes, which I will not identify for charity�s sake, which have a fuller liturgy than the general norm but are not growing because of the poor pastoral skills of the pastor. Liturgy is certainly a factor - the better pastors will provide a better Liturgy- but for the people, the pastoral care and love shown by the pastor are just as, if not, more important than the Liturgy. When the bishops mandated infant Communion, those parishes where the pastor supported and explained the decision accepted it, where the pastor was hostile to the practice, there were problems.

�Not to have read .... � Indeed! I am not convinced by your argument for liberty and not mandate. You seem to think that the �experiment� of reading the anaphora aloud begins now, while it has actually been done for over forty years. I support the bishops, who have finally decided, after many priests voluntarily did it, that this is a good practice that should be implemented. It is not a latinization, proposals for the audible recitation of the anaphora were made in the Russian Church at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, and the Zoe movement in Greece did it for most of the twentieth century. The Greek Church recently (2004) officially recommended the practice. When priests in our church began to do it, they simultaneously rejected praying facing the people - because that was a latinization. So we are not �copying a custom from the Latin Church�. Of course, John, you argue for �liberty,� but your opposition is obvious - you say �they are rethinking because it has not borne the fruit that was desired.� I doubt very much this practice is going to be reversed soon. You seem to argue mostly from Cardinal Ratzinger�s viewpoint, but his proposal is not the same as the Byzantine Church. The Byzantine Church never had �silence,� The priest read the anaphora quietly while the people sang, probably because the words of the prayer were in a dead language. Ratzinger seems to argue for something quite different from the Byzantine experience (The Spirit of the Liturgy, 215-216), where the faithful are catechesized first on the meaning of the prayer, then the priest says the first few words aloud, and then the community together in silence prays the Canon. This brings up a number of problems - the anaphora is now really oriented to liturgical instruction, and the anaphora as the prayer said by the priest which the faithful appropriate by their �Amen� is obscured. In any case, Ratzinger�s proposal would be a true �latinzation� if we adopted it. Ratzinger, moreover, acknowledge the centrality of the eucharistic prayer (read The Spirit of the Liturgy, pp. 171-177, and again, p. 46, where he says, �The sacrifice is the �word�, the word of prayer, which goes up from man to God, embodying the whole of man�s existence and enabling him to become �word� (logos) in himself.� John, you complain that the prayers said aloud are �didactic� but you have yet to respond to my observation that in the early church the prayers were said aloud after the catechumens were dismissed, that only the baptized laity were present because the uninitiated should not hear these �mystical� words.

So - mandate or not? I invite the readers of the Forum to think within themselves about this:
in extension, should the following be mandated or not:
1. Infants who are baptized. Should priests be mandated to give them Communion if they request or not?
2. We have said the Creed for generations with the added words, �and the Son,� should the omission of these words be mandated or not?
3. Many parishes with a �Low Mass� still do not read an Epistle. Should an Epistle be mandated or not?
4. For that matter, should the literal �Ruthenian recension� be mandated or not?
5. Should the use of English be mandated or not?
6. Should variant Ambon Prayers be mandated or not?
7. Should the celebration of at least some part of the divine praises be mandated or not?
8. Should the prohibition of the celebration of the Divine Liturgy on weekdays of the Great Fast be mandated or not?
9. Should the prohibition of women in the altar be mandated or not?
10. Should the faithful stand during the Anaphora. Should this be mandated or not?
11. Should the faithful stand to receive Communion and not kneel.� Should this be mandated or not?
12. Should obedience to the bishops in liturgical matters be mandated or not?

Think about what should be mandated or not. I�m sure the forum members will come up with a number of answers.

John writes: �Those who prepared the liturgical revision (rubrics, texts and music) are talented, worked hard and meant well.� But, John, you are wiser and you know �the reforms should be opposed because they are wrong.� I myself do not claim infallibility, but perhaps there are good reasons for what we have done and we should get more of a hearing than we have. We do not have brains the size of a walnut. You go on to say,�Rome was correct in instructing us to restore the Ruthenian Liturgy according to the official book.� But - Rome has approved the 2007 translation, how can you possibly say we are not following Rome�s instruction. If you claim that the 2001 Rome approval has no validity because the text was not released, then the 1964 translation is not valid either and, in strict legality, we would have to celebrate the Liturgy in Slavonic. [Here I apologize, for I am using a debate trick also - reductio ad absurdam - and I know most would not advocate going back - at least entirely - to Church Slavonic.] Rather than engage in polemics, I will state flatly - the 2007 translation is not full of �mistakes and agendas.�

You claim: �The first rounds of the reforms in 1988 in Parma and in 1995 in Passaic are responsible for people leaving, and this has been demonstrated.� Explain further - first of all, whenever a change is made, some people leave, that is human nature, and we cannot avoid it, we still must do what is best for the community as a whole. Some people probably left Aliquippa when the fuller Liturgy was introduced, but it was for the greater good of the parish. You have not �demonstrated� anything, you�ve only told a few anecdotes. In the anecdote of the Presanctified Liturgy in your own parish, you�ve even admitted that other factors may also have been in play, and I�ve looked into that matter. I don�t think it constitutes a �demonstration.� A really proper �demonstration� is probably not possible. I have tried to poll pastors before, and the answers received are often skewed. I suspect that the �evidence� offered by some posters is also skewed, though I refuse to accuse anyone of �falsifying.� As a subjective observation, I am totally and completely unimpressed by your �demonstration.�

Finally, you ask - in bold letters yet - a question that you claim I have not answered - you ask �Why, Father David, are you so implacably opposed to the idea that the official Ruthenian Recension of the Divine Liturgy should be used in liturgical practice?� I have actually answered this many times. I am not opposed at all to the Ruthenian Recension. I consider the 2007 translation to be a promulgation of the Ruthenian Recension - with certain pastoral adaptations, noted over the 66 years since its publication by Rome. It is you who insist that it must be promulgated only with literal exactitude - I consider it promulgated as to spirit. I am not a literalist. Nor is Liturgy as such simply a recension - it is also action and gesture, music and proclamation, a feast of the mind and soul and heart. I celebrated the �recension� in all its literal exactitude for seven years of my life when I was a student in the Russicum, and I am grateful to God for the spiritual benefit I received from this experience, and now I celebrate a new translation, and I�m grateful to God for this experience- releasing some more of the potential within the Byzantine Liturgy and opening up the prayer to the Father to the congregation, so that together we can �lift up our hearts.�

John, you have raised many questions that deserve an answer, but your uncompromising hostility to whatever the Inter-eparchial Liturgy Commission has done saddens me. However, Monmakh�s observation in thread A saddens me more:
He writes: �Another subject that hasn't been discussed on this board is that now that Pope Benedict has given permission for the Latin Mass, our best 'evangelization' tool is gone. The people who couldn't stand the Novus Ordo now have a place to go and those who were going to leave will now stay. So there's less people that will be coming over and a few Latins will probably return� (August 7, Post 248200)
I ask - is this Liturgy I�ve loved since my youth, baptized and chrismated in the Eastern Catholic Church on September 7, 1941, and which I�ve prayed for 66 years only a receptacle for Latins who want to escape the Novus Ordo.

Lest anyone stomp on me - I welcome Roman Catholics, and more than half of my very best and sincere friends are from the Roman Church, but, thanks be to God, most have come out of a love for the East and not just to escape. To try only to attract those who are unhappy in the West is, however, in no sense of the term �evangelization.�

Reluctantly, I return to the lists - both because I owe it to others who have been defending the positions I espouse, and because I myself enjoy the use of reductio ad absurdum and thus should appreciate Father David's use of the same device. So here goes:

On a major point, Father David is correct: the best Liturgy possible is unlikely to succeed without a good pastor who is sincerely dedicated both to the Liturgy (what kind of priest is not dedicated to the Liturgy?) and to the spiritual welfare of his flock. Any priest who treats his flock like people who are simply obligated to support his liturgical preferences would do well to seek occupation elsewhere. That said, though, a genuine commitment to Liturgy is apt to involve a commitment to authenticity and a failure to appreciate wholesale (or even retail) abbreviations and what at least seem to be frivolous changes.

Since Father David does not wish to quibble, it would be well for him to stop raising the red herring of Slavonic - I know of no one who ia advocating a return to Church-Slavonic to the exclusion of English.

Father David is unconvinced by the Administrator's conviction that the recitation of the Anaphora aloud is a latinization. I'm unconvinced by Father David's counter-argument; the coincidence is just too close to be accidental. In any case, an evaluation of the results of reading the Anaphora aloud in the Roman Rite is highly germane to the discussion.

Yes, ZOE has been using the Anaphora aloud for a number of years. And many, many priests in Greece do not follow suit. Nobody in Greece seems to be starting a war on the issue.

Adopting Benedict XVI's ideas - which are opposed to current latin practice - would make us latinizers? I must have missed something; I don't follow the argument. I'll have to read the relevant materials again.


Again, I must have missed something. I communicate infants every Sunday, but I've never yet had an infant "request" Communion! I would not knowingly communicate an unbaptized person, regardles of age.

If the priests rejected the idea of "facing the people", I'm happy to hear it. When did the priests have the opporutnity to rexpress their rejection of this? And when did the priests have the opportunity to express their rejection of the Anaphora aloud, or the rest of the innovations?

The restoration of infant Communion, the dropping of the Filioque, and the insistence on the reading of the Epistle are not innovations, they are restorations, and as such are already mandated (did anyone really give written permission to omit the Epistle?).

Should variant Ambon Prayers be mandated or not?
I see no reason to mandate this - nor have I seen any reason advanced. If you have one, do please tell me.

Should the use of English be mandated? Since it's already a fact, and no serious person is about to attempt to stop it, why bother? But there are almost certaily places with a need for Spanish, and there are definitely places with recent arrivals in the US where other languages are appropriate. Perhaps those should be mandated, if priests are recalcitrant about accomodating the faithful.

Should the celebration of at least some part of the divine praises be mandated or not?
It already is -by Vatican II and the Code of Canons.

Should the prohibition of the celebration of the Divine Liturgy on weekdays of the Great Fast be mandated or not?

It already is, in quite a number of places including the service-books themselves.

Should the prohibition of women in the altar be mandated or not?

It already is - by the Ordo Celebrationis.

Should the faithful stand to receive Communion and not kneel.� Should this be mandated or not?
Pastorally, I would not advise an absolute mandate; it can explode and we do not need the results. One can explain the matter, but it is better to accommodate those who still prefer to kneel than to find oneself in an embarrassing court case on the issue - it happened in Canada not so long ago!

Should the faithful stand during the Anaphora. Should this be mandated or not?
Of course the faithful should stand during the Anaphora. Again, though, pastoral prudence (and when did you last hear that expression!) advises against giving orders in such matters to the parishioners. Patience can work wonders.

Should obedience to the bishops in liturgical matters be mandated or not?
The bishops certainly seem to think so. But what does one do when the bishop seeks to command what is wrong? Please don't tell me it doesn't happen; we could each of us cite many examples.

You may not have discerned mistakes and agendas in the new text; others certainly have (I can assure you that I am not alone). There is a key difference between the 1965 "red book" and the 2007 travesty - I might not like the 1965 translation, but at least it is a translation, not a recasting. The 2007 version is a major departure from the original, so there is justification for demanding a stronger proof of approval than a simple protocol number. For that matter, I don't remember the Holy See ever deciding that the 1965 translation was the only one approved for use.

Reductio ad absurdum does have its half-life. You've acknowledged that this is what you are engaged in when you claim that those who oppose your innovations are therefore supporting a return to Church-Slavonic. Since you, therefore, acknowledge that we are doing nothing of the kind, please drop it. It was witty the first time; now it has become half-witted.

Since you deny the charge of opposition to the Ruthenian REcension, why then would you refuse to permit the full celebration of the Liturgy according to that edition? There is here a serious inconsistency.

Anecdotal evidence is not worthless.

On your final point, I rather think we are in complete agreement - no one should join any Church purely as a means of rejecting some other Church; several parishes I know have burned their fingers on "refugees" from the Novus Ordo. Such people should be welcomed, on the clear understanding that they may not use our parishes as a base from which to attack the Missal of Paul VI, or Vatican II - or for that matter the Book of Common Prayer, or whatever. There is no lack of positive features to our Church, so let whoever comes to us let go of battles elsewhere and enjoy life with us.

My apologies for some grammar confusion in this post - it's one AM on Saturday and weekends are a busy time!

fraternally in Christ,

Fr. Serge

Slava Isusu Christu!
Slava na Viki!

Father Petras--I am not sure how I feel about some of the things you mentioned. I probably wouldn't care one way or another about some of them. I do agree with some and disagree with others. But I do want to thank you for your post. Your name has been mentioned again and again. Both in good terms and in less than good terms. People have asked for you to respond and you have. This is not the only post you have on the forum.

So whether I agree with you or not, I applaud you for taking the time to forumulate your thoughts and respond to posts.

I have sent you a few private e-mails to you and they have been replied to promptly and with good grace. So I think you deserve some credit for coming on the forum even though you have been spoken of in less than nice terms.

Many people simply wish there had been more participation from the laity and even priests before things were promulgated. I have heard the new Divine Liturgy from Parma a few times and my posts stand for themselves. I experienced the new DL in person for the first time less than two weeks ago. It was at St. John's in Uniontown and Father Wesdock was wonderful. The music certainly was different and I found myself lost a few times. But it was my first experience. Due to health problems I am not able to attend DL weekly, as I certainly wish I could.

Your comments about pastors playing a major part in how things are received by the congregation is correct. Imagine someone coming to your door to sell a product and the first thing they say to you is "You don't want to buy (fill in the blank) from me, do you" while shaking their head. Your answer would obviously be no. Positive energy begets positive energy. I am not accusing any priests of presenting the RDL in a negative way, since I don't know how it was presented. But as the priest in my home church said--yes, it's a big change. But imagine how our ancestors felt when they were told to sing in English, not Slavonic!

Please continue to respond to questions posted. We won't always agree with you, I'm sure. But you do deserve credit for responding.

But one thing mentioned before ties in with this--why have the Bishops not spoken of this more? Why don't we have official communication with them? People have made the allegations that e-mails have not been returned, phone calls not returned, even appointments not allowed to be made. I can't verify since I have not tried myself. I would if I could. Do the Bishops feel that the statement at the beginning of the Promulgation in the book says it all and there's no need to say anything else? If that's the case, that's a poor management technique. And I think if you have ever been on the recieving end of that attitude, you know it to be true. In your capacity, is there anyway you can relate this kind of information to the Bishops? And I do ask in all humility and sincerity. This is the year 2007, not 807. People are educated, intelligent and can accept change. But they also know that not all people in authority are infallible and perfect. Decisions are made for a variety of reasons. It would be wonderful to think The Holy Spirit helped make every decision made by a Bishop, Patriarch, Pope, priest or deacon. But we know better. Ignoring parishioners is no way to keep them.

Just my opinion. I speak for no one else.

Tim

Dear Father David,

Yes, everyone would come up with any number of answers, if what matters was personal and private opinions. Tom prefers this, Dick prefers that, and Harry prefers something else altogether.

That is why we can't base our discussions on personal preferences, yours, mine, or anyone elses. To get to the bottom line. We will never agree!

So what will we agree on? Only one thing can unite us. The official Liturgical books of our Ruthenian Recension.

As soon as we start introducing revisions, reorganizations, restructuring, rewriting, substitutions and inventions, they will be based on someone's opinion of what would be better. Even if that person is a professor, or even a bishop, the moment they introduce their own opinions, as more important that the official texts, then all is lost, and this becomes a game, of me getting my way, or you getting yours. And this is too important to be reduced to a power game, deciding who gets their own way, and who gets to 'like it, or leave'.

Of course, every translation from one language to another, will be a matter for talented men (and women) to use their skills and make judgements. So to some degree, every translation will be somehow subjective.

But this can be kept to a minimum, if the translators accept good principles of translation for ancient texts, sanctified by time and use. These principles must be to translate the documents carefully, and to be rigorous, accurate, faithful, precise, clear, complete, exact and (as far as possible in the new language) beautiful.

So, asking for everyone's opinion is interesting. But it is not really to the point.

What is the point, is that the committee put their opinions, and controversial agendas and interpretations, above a clear reading of the texts. The result is not a translation, and not a restoration, but a mistake, based on mistaken principles of translation.

What should be mandated, is what this Church has always refused to mandate. Our beautiful, elegant, poetic, magnificent, inspiring, Ruthenian Recension. Why edit, revise and reorganize a masterpiece, based on the opinions of Father Tom, Father Dick, and Father Harry?

I don't think the committee or the bishops really want to hear our opinions about what should be mandated, they didn't listen to the people before this book fiasco, so why ask us now that the damage is done?

Nick

Father David,

It saddens me that you are unable to see the overall meaning of the statement. We shouldn't be and never should have been a receptacle for Latins who wanted to escape the Novus Ordo. Why did it end up this way? Can you point out what you and our leaders have been doing to evangelize and create a situation where the vast majority of our new people (which is not a great number) were not Latins who wanted to escape the Novus Ordo. It saddens me that you and our leaders were not alarmed enough to mount a mass evangelization effort and instead mounted a revision and divided our church more. Now the Latin Mass is returning, so those folks who wanted to escape the Novus Ordo have a place to go. What is the plan to evangelize in the present and future? Do you think spending the amount of money and time that was spent on the RDL was wiser than spending it on an evangelization effort?


Monomakh

Glory to Jesus Christ!

Brothers and Sisters,

These recent posts are beginning to point in the direction that I believe all discussion should be going: a context of complete liturgical renewal of the Eastern Catholic Churches.

By "liturgical renewal" I am speaking about a worldview of which the RDL could perhaps serve as one facet, or as we see in these posts, a catalyst for the thinking and discussions that ought to go on.

The RDL would make greater sense if it, as well as everything we do or do not do, is set within in a context. This context would be a call to rediscover first the sense of mission of the Eastern Catholic Churches. Secondly, a vision would be developed in order for us to go about the "mission." Thirdly we would propose a plan such as the RDL and many, many, many other things. This is precisely why my personal motto for evangelization for the Eastern Catholic Churches is, "raze them to the ground and rebuild them according to their authentic identity." This is a completely positive, forward looking vision on my part,not a negative one. In other words we would "resculpt" the entire Eastern Catholic world according to a liturgical worldview. This view includes things like the "Domestic Church."

"Renewal" means discovering old things but in new ways. The riches of the Christian East are good for all times. They are absolutely dynamic and have a tremendous power to evangelize on their own. The trick is to journey vertically, deep down into what these riches are. This goes well beyond confining our energies and focus to arguing over this or that text or word translation, although I an not mitigating the importance of these aruguments. It is just that these arguments are more significant, relevant, transforming and evangelical if they were part of a liturgical worldview--a REAL renewal of the Eastern Catholic world.

In order to set about a renewal of a liturgical worldview (mission-vision-plan) we must first pass through what I call,
"Judgement Day." We have to, as all of you are doing in these posts, ask ourselves the hardest of hard questions: "WHY" are we doing what we are doing? Does it serve the mission? Is it part of the vision? If not it goes. It so, it stays and is polished up and allowed to thrive. This would in fact mean things like: Why are we doing saturday night "Masses?" which in very anti-Eucharistic style break up an already tiny and in most cases struggling Eastern Catholic community. If we actually had a renewal of our liturgical-Eucharistic spirituality we would see that such a practice is a very very serious contradiction to eucharistic theology.

I am all in favor of the "mandates" dimension of things but they must come ONLY after there is a full context for mandates--a mission-vision-and plan that is positive, forward looking and in which everybody wins. As a pastor for over 25 years I can say that there is no good reason why an eastern Catholic parish in America should do "Saturday night "Masses." Conversely, (and I can testify from actual experience) when we do what is true to authentic spiritual and liturgical tradition of the Christian East it actually produces results of new life and growth in holiness in a parish! Yes, even measureable results!! This is just one tiny, tiny example of an immense, sweeping "Judgement Day" that is necessary for a real renewal of the Eastern Catholic Churches.

There would be very little if any controversey over efforts such as the RDL if there was a sense of mission, a common vision and plan that all of the members of the Eastern Churches (especially the rank and file) could take ownership of--something that would actually dramatically transform peoples' faith and lives.

A Sobor, perhaps?

CDL

I thank Father David for his post.

Father David references my �debating techniques�. I posted as I did because Father David does not respond to the points I make. In this discussion Father David is responding as if I have demanded that priests be prohibited from praying the Anaphora aloud. I have never demanded or even hinted such. I have advocated no mandates but liberty, so that the Spirit may work across the entire Byzantine Church (Catholic and Orthodox). A mandate regarding the praying of the Anaphora out loud makes absolutely no sense since 1) it is a copying of a Latin custom that the Latins admit problems with and 2) the Orthodox (who we are supposed to match liturgically) have not issued such a mandate.

Regarding the necessity of having a good pastor, I agree with Father David. Unfortunately the revision he and the committee have prepared for the Church is not based upon authentiticy, which is a restoration to the official books. The Revised Divine Liturgy has not been welcomed by pastors and will only succeed in making their job more difficult.

Again, Father David�s reference to the Greek Orthodox recommendation (which is not a mandate) supports my position of liberty and not his position of mandate. The Greeks have set the soil for possible growth of the custom of praying the Anaphora out loud. They have not revised their official Divine Liturgy books to require that the Anaphora be prayed out loud.

The �experiment� has not been done for forty years across the entire Byzantine Church. We are obligated to work together with not just our fellow Byzantine Catholics but with all of Byzantine Orthodoxy should we feel that such a change is necessary.

[I have posted numerous quotes from official documents before and could do so again, but this one alone should make the point.]

To repeat myself yet again, we should only accomplish change when working together with all of the Byzantine Churches.

�Probably.� That�s the problem with Father David�s reform � it is based on a lot of assumptions that are not proven (or at least he has not provided demonstrable, well-referenced theological explanations for his ideas). The fact is that we do not yet know exactly why the prayers were prayed quietly.

Father Taft says they were prayed aloud but not proclaimed (p. 166 of his new book, Through Their Own Eyes). [Was the Greek of 565 when Justinian issued his novella to pray these prayers out loud already a dead language? If yes, what good would Justianian�s novella accomplish? And if no one was capable of understanding the Greek from a few centuries before why did they not update it?]

Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) indicates that �the canon falling quiet and being overlaid with meditative singing� began �in Jerusalem, from a very early time� and that �To dismiss all this as the result of misunderstandings is just too easy.� (Spirit of the Liturgy, p.215)

Father David says in his book (p. 19) that �We don�t know� the reason (and then gives the same guess of a dead language, and then treats a guess as a fact by building on it).

It all boils down to Father David seeking and winning a mandate to do something that is not in our official Ruthenian liturgical books (those we share with others) and which is also neither common nor mandated across all of the Byzantine Churches (Catholic and Orthodox). This mandate is wrong and should, along with the entire RDL, be rescinded.

Father Taft says that while the priests in the early Church did pray the Anaphora aloud they also made no attempt �to proclaim� the Anaphora.

The larger question to be answered here is why did the Holy Spirit allow the prayers to be prayed quietly by the priest (i.e., not for the hearing and education of the faithful)?

But even this is off topic. The discussion is the mandate and not the possible development of the praying of the Anaphora out loud. Father David has offered no evidence that a mandate in the Ruthenian Church is necessary, and he has failed to meet the requirement that we work with other Byzantines (both Catholic and Orthodox) and not differentiate ourselves from the official liturgical tradition we share with them.

Regarding the 12 questions Father David has asked, the official 1942 Ruthenian Recension (and other official books) should be made normative. Clergy and parishes that do not celebrate correctly should not be corrected though the use of mandates and threats but rather through example, education and encouragement. The one thing that can unite us Ruthenians of the Pittsburgh Metropolia is the official standard of Liturgy we share with others, and not Father David�s or the committee�s idea of what the Liturgy should be. Allowing the official Liturgy to be prayed will form us and unite us not just as a local Church in America but with Ruthenians, other Byzantine Catholics and all of Orthodoxy.

Father David, you and the commission have prepared and managed to get mandated a Revised Divine Liturgy that is vastly different than the official 1942 Ruthenian Divine Liturgy. Parishes which prayed the entire official Liturgy (which was reasonably good as given in the 1964/1965 edition) are now prohibited in doing so. Please stop suggesting that the 2007 is more faithful than the 1964/1965 edition. It is not. In case you haven�t noticed, whole parts of the Divine Liturgy are missing in the 2007 edition and many of the rubrics bear no resemblance to those in the official Slavonic texts (and they were there correctly in the 1964/1965 edition).

If you say you support the official 1942 Ruthenian recension will you state on this Forum that you support a call for priests and parishes to pray it, unabridged, accurate rubrics, and in an accurate English translation?

Principled disagreement does not equate hostility. Nothing I have posted on this Forum or have said to any individual in our Church in conversation is hostile. I have stated and will keep stating that the members of the commissions that prepared the revised texts, rubrics and music that make up the Revised Divine Liturgy are all good men, who love Christ and have sought to do their best. I oppose the Revised Divine Liturgy because it is an inaccurate presentation of the official Ruthenian Divine Liturgy, one that we hold in common with others. Had they sought to restore the official Ruthenian Liturgy instead of revise it I would be their strongest champion.

I've thought again about something I said at midnight a couple of days ago - that good Liturgy by itself won't do it. I'm not so sure I was right. Saint Michael's, New York, has been there for about 70 years, happily muddling along. While Father Andrew Rogosh was still alive (I think he died in 1969), the pastoral work did not lack for continuity. After he died, however, Saint Michael's went through almost two decades of lack of continuity, for complicated reasons which needn't detain us here. Nevertheless, the community remained strong, held together precisely by good Liturgy - the faithful make and continue to make significant sacrifices to get there Sunday after Sunday; even Saturday Vespers is reasonably well attended.

Fr. Serge

Your post suggests that it took good liturgy and the faithful.

That is correct - but without the good Liturgy, the faithful would have been long gone!

Fr. Serge

Glory to Jesus Christ!

For whatever it may be worth: My pastoral experience of praying the Anaphora aloud has been a very positive one. The Faithful, from my experience, are very moved and impressed by the prayers.
Our prayers have an evangelical value to them when heard by the Faithful and especially by potential converts. We actually take the entire St. Basil Anaphora aloud at my parish. Admittedly this is something that even several years ago I would not have thought would have worked pastorally, but it does!

As this issue is debated it might be helpful from an historical dimension to consider that there is a great need for people in modern day America to hear thoughts and words put together with the elegance and depth of the prayers of our liturgical services. Except for its efficiency in techinical communication the use of the English language has become increasingly more banal. This is due in part to the fact that education today does not stress teaching people how to think in an ordered, creative and expressive fashion. If nothing else, the Anaphora taken aloud accords the Faithful (and potential Faithful!) the opportunity to hear thoughts and words put together in such a lofty fashion.

--Fr. Thomas J. Loya, STB, MA.

Our Lord said, �Then he took the bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, �This is my body, which will be given for you, do this in memory of me.�� (Luke 22:19)
It is this command of the Lord that makes sense for the reading of the anaphora aloud. �Said the blessing,� - at the Last Supper the Lord read a prayer of blessing of the food, particularly the bread and wine, but gave it a new meaning. He said this action was now to be �in memory of him.� As God, this brings about a real, eternal memory - Jesus is present in the gifts which become in reality his body and blood, and we offer to him his very own sacrifice on the Cross, �offering you yours of your own,� - now in a bloodless manner - and remember him in a divine memory in which God is present among us as he was for his disciples. When we pray the anaphora, we hear the divine plan of salvation of God for us, �Remembering, therefore, this saving command and all that has come to pass in our behalf: the cross, the tomb, the resurrection on the third day, the ascension into heaven, the sitting at the right hand, and the second coming in glory.� We hear that God �brought us out of nonexistence into being,� that he �left nothing undone until you brought us to heaven and gave us your kingdom to come,� that �he so loved his world that he gave his only-begotten Son,� so that �everyone who believes in him should not perish but have life everlasting.� How could we tire of remembering these great blessings.
It tells us also how to be Christian, no one can truly be a follower of Christ unless he or she is also willing, like Christ, to offer his or her own life to God. All lovers of God will give themselves and their lives totally to God for �the forgiveness of sins and life everlasting,� for whoever loses his life for my sake and for the sake of the gospel will find it.�
This is real �evangelization.� As I have mentioned, it is clear that the anaphora was proclaimed for the baptized congregation, after catechesis, but by its very �action� it is living out the gospel. [John sends me to the dictionary - I use �proclaim� here in the sense of �to announce officially,� or �to praise and extol,� (Webster�s New World Dictionary of the American Language, 1970 edition, p. 1133). Taft in his book, �Through their Own Eyes,� is using �proclaim,� in the sense of �intoning.� or �chanting,� as opposed to simply �reading aloud,� as is absolutely - no probably about it - clear from the context.]
The question has been asked on the Forum, �How do we evangelize.� We must start with a people who have been evangelized, who not only give their lives for God and for one another (which is the same thing), but who are alive in Christ in the Liturgy in which Christ gives himself to us, and in whose mystery we live - mystery in the sense of revealed mystery taught by St. Paul, the mystery of �Christ in us, our hope of glory.� (read Colossians 1:25-27 et al.). How does the gospel spread, indeed. I do not believe it is from ads in the newspapers or TV or radio, or in speeches in public forums, but primarily by word of mouth, by the words of a truly evangelized people to their friends and neighbors. There is evidence that this is the way Christianity spread in the beginning. Will our Liturgy accomplish this? Perhaps not yet perfectly, but we must give it a chance. For the church to grow, we must start with a people, living an unselfish life in Christ, and spreading the good news of this life to others around them. I think the Liturgy is an element of this. This is why I think it is so important to understand the Liturgy properly.
�Conservative� people are those that especially want to �preserve� important values. �Conservative� people will be more reluctant to change, and this is okay. However, �reactive� people will oppose change because it is change. Therefore, conservative people will ask, �Why do we need this change?� My answer is above. But they may object, this has not been the custom for centuries, has the Holy Spirit not been guiding us? I hope in the Holy Spirit, who is always alive in his church. Whether the silent anaphora is of the Holy Spirit may be discussed, and I refuse to sit in judgment on previous generations. Liturgies, however, can �devolve,� rather than evolve. I know only this - now the Liturgy is in the vernacular, now the prayers can be understood, to follow the Holy Spirit now would seem to demand the change - that the prayers now be proclaimed in the community. The Holy Spirit certainly guides us to all truth, and I think he has been leading us, of the Eastern Church, Catholic and Orthodox, to an understanding of the centrality of the Anaphora, even though the greatest Orthodox Churches - the Russian and the Greek - have yet to accept the vernacular. We have accepted the vernacular and we can do it now. As a priest, it is not my office to mandate the change to a public anaphora, but apparently the bishops believe that this is important enough and with a clear enough reason to do it now. In the list I gave of possible mandates, I did not ask which were actually mandated or not, but simply for the reader to consider within himself or herself which should - because of their importance - be mandated or not. I would consider infant communion and the public anaphora as of comparable importance.
Note that Cardinal Ratzinger emphasizes the centrality of the Anaphora: �By the actio of the liturgy the sources mean the Eucharistic Prayer. The real liturgical action, the true liturgical act, is the oratio, the great prayer that forms the core of the Eucharistic celebration, the whole of which was, therefore, called oratio by the Fathers.� (The Spirit of the Liturgy 171-172)
Note also the quoting of authors. John quotes Cardinal Ratzinger as saying that the �canon falling quiet and being overlaid with meditative singing� began �in Jerusalem, from a very early time.� What Ratzinger actually wrote was (The Spirit of the Liturgy, 215), �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.� Ratzinger says �parts of the Canon.� �Parts of the Canon� - in Palestine and Syria, strophes private to the priest were added to the Anaphora as the people made acclamations. The Byzantines overlay parts of the anaphora with singing, though my recollection of the Tridentine Mass from childhood was that the entire Roman anaphora, including the words of institution, was said in a whisper, with no singing.
John quotes Taft as if Taft were downplaying the public recitation of the Anaphora.: �Father Taft says that they were prayed aloud but not proclaimed.� (Through Their Own Eyes, p. 166). Let us please put this in context:

[Quote]
Audience: Going back somewhat to the previous question, I�m curious what you might say about the very controversial topic nowadays of whether the anaphora should be said aloud or not ....
Taft: Of course it should.
Audience: ... and I was interested in your comments earlier ...
Taft: Of course it should; no question about it.
Audience: ... but in the earlier church where they were saying it like this ... there seems to be some precedent for not ...
Taft: No. No. They said it aloud. They didn�t perhaps proclaim it because of the bowing over, but there�s no question about the fact that all prayers were said aloud.�
[End quote]

Note: Taft does not downplay public recitation. In fact, he repeats strongly that it should be said aloud. It was not �proclaimed� (in the sense I discussed above) because you can�t intone or chant when you are bowed over (John omits the reason for the lack of �proclamation�). Since we do not �bow over� anymore, the anaphora should be intoned or chanted. Note also that Taft uses the �perhaps� word in regard to �proclamation.� Whenever I use the �perhaps� or �probably� word, John immediately discounts what I say because then we don�t know for sure.
I will concede that there is a problem because not all priests are adept in public reading. The solution is not to retain the silent anaphora, but to provide training for public proclamation.

Dear Father David,

I don't think there are lots of people arguing here that the anaphora must always be silent, or that it should never be taken aloud so that we can hear it.

In fact, lots of priests I respect have taken it aloud. I know some great men and scholars who take it aloud, and I don't respect them any less. It is a respectable opinion. I respect your position on this question too. I wouldn't be surprised if it eventually catches on, and becomes the norm.

However, no other Byzantine Church has 'mandated' this. Do you not see that the idea of 'mandating' Liturgical change is not really traditional, and is an idea born in post Vatican II reforms?

Also, in joining this change (the audible anaphora and other prayers) with other less credible changes (I'm thinking of the feminist nonsense, inclusive language, and altered litanies), and odd musical interpretations, it throws the whole thing in a bad light. If it is joined with other suspicious 'agendas' then maybe it too is suspicious?

I will accept that there is a good argument for an audible anaphora.

I will not accept that it was 'mandated' in a way likely to help. In fact, the opposite reaction is being experienced, as we react to it, with new music, and repulsive exclusive agendas.

To me, the whole idea of bishops mandating this kind of radical agenda driven book, is contrary to what bishops should be doing. They should be traditional, and guardians of the tradition. Instead, they are the radical ones, and those of us in the pews are wondering who turned this Church upside down?

Given patience, and education, I have no doubt that an audible anaphora might even become the norm in our Church, and in other Churches.

However, there is something else at work in this terrible book. Something that leaves me cold. Your argument for an audible anaphora has some very dubious friends, and it is tainted by their company.

Too many changes, too many agendas, too forcefully mandated. I don't think the Holy Spirit works that way.

This Church needs to lighten up, loosen up, and pray harder for direction. Somehow, it has lost its way.

This Revised Divine Liturgy, already is dated, and needs to be revised again. No way to run a Church.

Nick

For what it is worth, the audible anaphora is is a big part of my own spiritual life. We do it at my church, and I almost have it memorized. In fact, I remember when the wife of a friend of mine was debating entering the Church, I was able to help her by dashing off an email with words of St. Basil's anaphora, largely from memory, that cleared up the problem.

I realize that my own likes and dislikes aren't normative for the Church, but I like it.

Father David,



How could one tire of hearing more than one verse of anthiphons?

How could one tire of hearing the little litanies?

I have yet to see a parish in the Eparchy of Parma (that doesn't mean that some parish isn't, I just haven't seen it) that takes the litany of supplication. How could they tire of praying 'for an angel of peace'.

No wonder every BCA church that I've been to that has the RDL is in and out in under 50 minutes.


So is this the excuse why the BCA doesn't have a proactive plan to grow its numbers through evangelization? Before we had a difference in the definition of 'restoration', now we are going to play word games with 'evangelization'? No wonder there's such a chasm between some clergy and the laity. Let me ask you, even with the definition that you want to use for evangelization, how is that evangelization plan working out in Parma and Pittsburgh? Is it going well?

Now unfortunately there is no doubt in my mind as to the fate of the BCA.

Father Loya, keep up the good work in doing what real 'evangelization' is.


I didn't know that they had TV and radio and print media during the time of St. Paul. Maybe it spread the way it did in the beginning because that was the only way to do it at the time. I know that one way they evangelized in the beginning was to hand down traditions as they had been given to them. When will the BCA begin doing this?



It is ashame that you don't see that there's a pattern occurring. Many of the revisions of the RDL have already been tried and implemented in Parma and Passiac in the last couple of decades. Vocations and attendance are down in these eparchies. In fact pretty much everything that is supposed to be up is down. So we are going to give it a chance again except this time it's going to be packaged with feminized inclusive language and less than desirable music? Anyone who can think for them self can predict the outcome. This why it is plain to see outcome, the failed revisions of the past are now going to be in all of the BCA parishes and a major amount of closings of parishes will sadly occur in Parma, Pittsburgh, and Passaic in the near future is inevitable.



The RDL is a great example of this.



Monomakh

Dear Father David,

And liberal people will propose change for change's sake, thinking they know better than the tradition, and that what served generations before, is inadequate for today. Radical liberals will try to change the whole Church to suit their own ideas and bizarre agendas.

I have been thinking about this point. It must be possible to unite liberals and conservatives, and radicals on all sides, into one Church? What has always united us as one Church in the past?

We could unite around our beautiful Ruthenian Recension, and the offical books of our Church. In them there was freedom, a priest could (and did) take the anaphora outloud. Some litanies could be abbreviated (and they were, but we presume the priest was praying the quietly at the altar).

But we could all unite around the books of the Church. We could pray together, sing together, and be united around the official books of our Church.

Now, the Ruthenian Recension has been thrown on the fire. The one thing that united us (our common service book) has been taken away. What will hold us together as a Church, where will we find our identity as a Church?

The bishops have been very reckless. In shifting the one thing that really defined us as a Church (the Ruthenian Recension), it seems they have liberated the demons that would separate us from one another, liberals and traditionalists, liberal wackos from conservative reationaries.

You want us all to 'understand the Liturgy'. I want the bishops to understand what they have done by revising it.

Nick

And for what it's worth, a friend whom I sponsored entering the Church from a Protestant denomination was equally very impressed by the "silence of mystery" as he put it in the offering of the Sacrifice and not being "preached to" at every step of the service as he and his wife were accustomed to in their former denomination.

I am opposed only to the absolute legislation, which indeed is a latinization - as both the audible and silent anaphora, factually speaking (without the need for "probably"), are part and parcel both in the "received tradition", like it or not.

Both usages (silent or audible) have very good pastoral and catechetical aspects, both have precedent, and both should be left to the pastor to decide according to economia. I equally like the silent offering of the Sacrifice by the priest, culminating with the loud proclamations of the Institution and the Epiclesis, as I do with everything audible.

I agree completely! The only legislation needed is that found in the service books of the Ruthenian Recension. No other mandates are required. The legislation and rubrics found there are perfectly adequate, and shouldn't be changed.

Where the rubrics of the service books, and the 'Ordo Celebrationis' and the 'Instruction' leave liberty, there should still be liberty.

The new books mandate opinions and theories, yet to be tested, yet to be proven.

Maybe it is too long since our bishops were pastors? Maybe it is too long since the professors in the seminary were pastors? Clearly, they have contempt for our pastors, and have no confidence in our pastor's ability to judge what is best, exercise 'economia' and celebrate for our good. They take away our pastor's liberty, because they do not trust him to judge for himself.

But I think my pastor knows us better, and knows better how to celebrate the Liturgy in our parish. I trust him more than I trust the seminary professors and bishops who have given us these terrible books.

No wonder my pastor is demoralized and depressed! No wonder we feel like our Church has been hijacked.

Until this nonsense is over, my tithe is going to a charity. I feel bad for my priest, because he is starting to worry about the parish finances since the collection is down. There are more empty pews, and fewer people giving envelopes. When the Archbishop sees that the Chancery's tax of the parish revenue is falling, do you think he will notice then?

I have a suggestion.

Since the Archbishop is worried about parishes without priests... Since he is asking priests to take on 2 and 3 parishes, maybe he should take just one of these parishes himself, in addition to his duties in the Chancery. Then he can try celebrating this new Liturgy every day in a parish! Then he can hear the complaints from the parishioners. Then he can wonder what to do about the falling collection. Then he can tell the people not to worry about the empty pews. Then he can explain to his own parishioners why these new books were so necessary.

Maybe then, after a few years as a pastor, he would begin to trust his priests more, and maybe then, he would be forced to listen to his people? Maybe then, he would throw these new books on the fire, and give us back our old Liturgy?

Just a suggestion...

Nick

I wonder if it is possible to agree on certain facts even if the consequences may be disputed. For instance:

1. No one is opposed to the audible Anaphora etc. The difference is between: The audible Anaphora is mandated as is the case in the RDL versus the audible Anaphora should be optional, even encouraged but not mandated, and if its time has come then it will become the norm.

[While the quotes that follow are addressed by Administrator to Fr. David specifically, I'm invoking them for the specific assertions that they make.]

2.

Does anyone dispute that the RDL is significantly different from the Recension liturgicon and Ordo?


3.

Does anyone dispute that this is the case?


4.

This elaborates on specifics of item 2 above. Is it not an accurate statement?



5.

Well, what do you (plural) say?



Does anyone dispute that the RDL moves us farther away from the Recension rite (text and rubrics) that "we hold in common with others" than using even an abridged version of the 1965 liturgicon?

Dn. Anthony

I thank Father David for his post.

For some reason Father David continues to argue as if I and others have been demanding a mandate for the Anaphora and other presbyteral prayers to be prayed quietly. I have never done so and I don�t remember anyone participating here that has made such a demand. I (and others) have argued only for the official Ruthenian recension, that it be normative for us, and not restricted in any way.

The discussion, rather, is about Father David�s asking for and obtaining a mandate for the Ruthenian Church of Pittsburgh to unilaterally modify the liturgy apart from the rest of the Byzantine Churches (Catholic and Orthodox). I have argued that our Church embrace a respect for our own official liturgical tradition, a part of which is the liberty for the priest to pray the Anaphora prayers either quietly or aloud. Father David has argued that his personal opinions on Liturgy be given precedent over the official forms.

In his earlier post on 8/10/2007 6:44 PM Father David states:
My argument for liberty is based upon the rubrics of the official Ruthenian edition of the Chrysostom Liturgy (which contains no specific rubric that the Anaphora be prayed either aloud or quietly). Father David argues that he is not convinced that the official rubric of the Ruthenian recension should be allowed and insists that a mandate is needed to remove the liberty offered by the official Ruthenian recension. And then he says he respects the official Ruthenian recension?

Father David has yet to address why the liberty of the Ruthenian recension will not serve better than the mandating of his personal liturgical preferences. The liberty of the official Ruthenian recension provides fertile soil for the possible natural development of the praying of the Anaphora aloud in our Church. This liberty also allows us to keep our liturgical books unchanged (and, therefore, the same as other Churches (Catholic and Orthodox) of the Ruthenian recension (and, indeed, close to all of the Byzantine Churches (Catholic and Orthodox)). Why is the liberty of the Ruthenian recension so offensive to Father David that he is willing to violate the Liturgical Instruction which clearly directs us to keep our books common with not just other Ruthenians but with the Orthodox?

I am uncomfortable with Father David describing the Divine Liturgy as an element of evangelization. Perhaps he might reconsider his point? The Divine Liturgy does evangelize. But participation in the Divine Liturgy is not really about evangelization. It is about sanctification � becoming holy. The Divine Liturgy is not merely an element of accomplishing evangelization. It is the very center of our lives, the primary way we relate to God, with the Eucharist as the source of our life.

We know that the official Ruthenian Divine Liturgy, celebrated completely and correctly, enlivens the church by sanctifying the people. We do not have any evidence that the Revised Divine Liturgy better leads to the sanctification of the faithful. We do have evidence that the reforms mandated in Parma and Passaic � which have many elements of the RDL � have not lead to the revitalization and evangelization that Father David has claimed. Instead we see a clergy and people who overwhelmingly oppose the reforms and are spiritually frustrated with the mandates.

If Father David wishes to label me and those others who seek to renew our Church according to the official Ruthenian liturgical books as �conservative�, he is free to do so. [And I proudly admit that I consider the official Ruthenian Liturgy to be important and worth preserving and renewing in our parishes! It should be made normative in our parishes and it should be the standard we follow. The RDL departs from this standard and should be rejected.]

Father David might consider that people like me are not at all reluctant to change. I seek great change. I support making the official Ruthenian recension normative for our Church, and then taking a dozen or so years to gently raise the �as celebrated� in our parishes (not through mandates but through example, education and encouragement). It seems to me that accomplishing this will require great change indeed. What I do oppose is change that removes us from the Ruthenian recension, change for the sake of change, change that imitates the Latins (especially customs they admit having problems with or are now revisiting because they have been unsuccessful), and change that removes us from the liturgical unity we hold with other Ruthenians (Catholic and Orthodox) and other Byzantines (Catholic and Orthodox).

In seeking and obtaining a mandate Father David has sat in judgment of previous generations. He has judged that the custom that began in �Jerusalem, from a very early time� is not of the Holy Spirit and must not be allowed. In refusing to allow the Spirit liberty to lead through the decisions of individual pastors across the entire Byzantine Church (Catholic and Orthodox) Father David potentially limits the working of the Holy Spirit. I say �potentially� because if Father David�s ideas are not of the Holy Spirit then they will crumble and fall. If the Emperor Justinian�s mandate could not get the priests to pray the Anaphora aloud then the mandate that Father David has sought and won will also fail if it is not of the Spirit. This is why liberty best prepares the soil for the working of the Holy Spirit.

Father David takes issue with my short quote from Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI). Yet I have quoted it at much greater length on several occasions and he did not respond. �Parts of the Canon� were indeed prayed aloud. Does Father David have documentation detailing which portions were taken aloud and which were prayed quietly in Constantinople? It seems quite possible (and very reasonable) that the structure we Byzantines have today comes to us from the earliest times (i.e., that the aloud parts of the Anaphora were the introduction to the thrice-holy hymn, the Words of Institution, and etc.).

Father David suggests that the Anaphora was earlier taken aloud for catechetical purposes (though he does not document his source for this claim so that it may be seen in context). Yet Father Taft continues past what both Father David and I quoted by saying (p. 166): �The people were incapable � the person in Church by himself or herself said their prayers aloud.� Several theologians more learned than I have explained this as that it would not matter if the priest prayed aloud or quietly because the people themselves were probably praying aloud (which was part of their culture). St. John Chrysostom tells us that the Anaphora was prayed behind curtains, which suggests that the prayers of the Anaphora were something far more important then the education of the faithful (see Father Serge�s excellent book page 250 and that whole chapter). In the end we do not know the details of why certain parts of the Anaphora began to be prayed quietly in the Great Church at Constantinople. Until we know and understand these details it is premature to mandate anything that departs from our official books.

I will repeat what I wrote at the beginning of this post to underscore it:

Father David has yet to address why the liberty of the Ruthenian recension will not serve better than the mandating of his personal liturgical preferences. The liberty of the official Ruthenian recension provides fertile soil for the possible natural development of the praying of the Anaphora aloud in our Church. This liberty also allows us to keep our liturgical books unchanged (and, therefore, the same as other Churches (Catholic and Orthodox) of the Ruthenian recension (and, indeed, close to all of the Byzantine Churches (Catholic and Orthodox)). Why is the liberty of the Ruthenian recension so offensive to Father David that he is willing to violate the Liturgical Instruction which clearly directs us to keep our books common with not just other Ruthenians but with the Orthodox?

The debate on the audible anaphora has convinced me absolutely that the internet is not well suited to these types of discussion.

My position is consistently misunderstood. Over and over again.

To Deacon Anthony:

The positions you seek as not disputed are precisely the things that are disputed.

�No one is opposed to the audible anaphora.� John is - he says he wants liberty, but has also said that the audible anaphora is a failed Roman experiment, and that in doing it we would be �latinizing.� While I accept that he concedes the liberty to say the anaphora aloud, the issue is the importance of this element of the Liturgy, and that is the dispute.

I dispute that the Restored Divine Liturgy is significantly different from the Ruthenian Recension and Ordo (is this a �latinization�; �ordo� is the Latin word, the Greeks use �akoluthia.�) It is significantly different if you make the assumption at the beginning, as many do on the Forum, that any deviation whatsoever from the 1941 Ruthenian Divine Liturgy (promulgated 09-01-41, three days after I was born, printed 1942) is major. Liturgically speaking the shortening of the Office of Antiphons in the Enarxis and the suppression of the Litany after the Great Entrance are minor, certainly less than the variations found in Liturgies before the standardization imposed by the invention of printing. This addresses questions 2, 4 and 5.

One of the problems of this discussion is the definition of the �Ruthenian Recension.� We do not pray the �Ruthenian Recension,� we pray the Divine Liturgy, one expression of which is the �Ruthenian Recension,� which I would describe as the Divine Liturgy as celebrated by the Byzantine Ruthenian Churches in union with Rome - i.e., the Ukrainians (some areas of which use the �Vulgate recension� ; the Carpatho-Rusyns (and those who call themselves Slovak, if you will), the Hungarians and the Croatians. Historically, the �Ruthenian Recension� was very �latinized,� which was repaired by the recension created by the Liturgy Commission authorized by the Sacred Oriental Congregation, led by Fr. Cyril Korolevsky, and which resulted in a series of books published between 1942-1973. These books needed to be promulgated by the Ruthenian Hierarchy. The original books, of course, are in Church Slavonic, and any promulgation, either complete or partial, has been of vernacular translations of the originals. Notable are the English translation of Bishop Nicholas of Pittsburgh in 1964, which is a literal translation of the 1941 recension, though Bishop Nicholas made it clear that the rubrics of the 1964 book were not to be followed. I have written evidence of this. Also notable are the promulgations of Bishop Emil of Parma in 1970, in a pastoral form, not approved by Rome, but praised by some members of the Forum because the pastoral modifications don�t �seem� mandated; then in 1987 in Parma and 1996 in Passaic by Bishop Andrew, more complete than Bishop Emil, but not praised by the Forum because the pastoral form seems mandated, and finally by the Council of Hierarchs in 2007, with the approval of Rome, the same dicastery which approved the 1941 Church Slavonic work, thereby declaring that it is in substantive agreement with the �Ruthenian Recension� and the �Liturgical Instruction� of 1996. I hold that this edition is closer to a fundamentalist (literal) correspondence to the 1941 work than what is found in most parishes, and that the differences from 1964 are purely pastoral, and minor, liturgically speaking. John insists likewise that the rubrics are vastly different, but this also is not true, there are a couple of modifications in incensation, to emphasize the incensation of the Gospel before the gospel, and the incensation of the Holy Table and the gifts before the Great Entrance, as is evident from liturgical principles. All other rubrics were not translated �literally,� but in clearer language, and do not contradict what is the practice deriving from the rather jejune rubrics of the 1942 Liturgicon. Does this represent a lessening of �liberty?� I hardly think so, since there is actually no dispute on what is actually to be done, and if a priest adopts a practice that may be �literally� in conformity with the 1942 rubrics, but not general practice, he will be identified clearly as celebrating �incorrectly.� This is precisely the difficulty of the �audible anaphora.� The rubrics say only that the �priest prays,� without clearly specifying �audibly.� There is a reason for that - in antiquity no one read quietly, as Taft points out, therefore, there was no need for a rubric. The Greek Church, always more free with their rubrics, added �silently� in the official text, a step the Slavs never took. However, some would hold that since it became general practice that the anaphora was said �silently� ( = vocalized, but not loud enough for the congregation to hear), that it would be �incorrect� to say the prayers aloud. Taft is abundantly clear (Through Their own Eyes, p. 166) that the presbyteral prayers should now be said aloud, despite efforts to minimize his statements.

To John: the sentence you quote from Taft has been misunderstood - the people did not pray the presbyteral prayers aloud - they said �their prayers� aloud. Just as today, if out of piety, you would say in your heart, �O God, be merciful to me, a sinner,� in antiquity, that would have been said aloud, because the very concept of inaudible prayer simply did not exist.
Likewise, you cannot say that the 1942 recension prescribes �liberty.� It doesn�t prescribe anything, which is a quite different matter, simply because in antiquity, the question did not come up. Now the question has come up. The Greeks, who actually inserted the rubric �silent,� now recommend (2004) the audible recitation of the Anaphora. Of course, this is minimalized because it is not mandated. Since you cannot (according to the �literalist� reading) mandate, therefore, the public recitation becomes, in effect, a moot point.

To John on this point:
John says: �Father David�s asking for and obtaining a mandate for the Ruthenian Church of Pittsburgh to unilaterally modify the liturgy ... � �I� asked for nothing - nothing! Is that clear - the Liturgy Commission asked for the audible recitation of the Anaphora, and the Council of Hierarchs accepted that and they chose to mandate it, as is their episcopal prerogative, because they consider it important enough. The ministry of bishops is precisely to oversee the celebration of the Liturgy - is that clear??? This was accepted by Rome, as a legitimate extension of the principle found in the Liturgical Instruction, paragraph 54. Note: the paragraph �only� recommends, but the extension to �mandate� is clearly an extension of this �study.� This Forum has somehow come up with the really tendentious opinion that the Liturgy is the way it is simply because �I like it.� This is pure dribble and �venting.� I am one priest of the Eparchy of Parma, it is absolutely and completely impossible that I could impose my �likes� on the whole Church. I only suggest, not based on �what I like,� or �what I dislike,� but on solid liturgical principles. The Church either accepts or rejects what I recommend, and the Council of Hierarchs has accepted and Rome has approved some of the things that I suggested, nothing more. The reason I do not answer questions of �mandate� is because I cannot �mandate� anything, and I think the wrong question is being asked.

I suspect, also, that what some people in this Forum mean by the �Ruthenian Recension� is what was done in their parish before the 2007 (or the 1986, 1996 preliminary liturgicons) translation.
The number of parishes celebrating the 1964 �red book� are few in number, much less representative of the people who post here, many of whom do not even attend a Ruthenian parish, and so I suspect that their definition of �Ruthenian recension� may not be what is under discussion.

As to number (3) of Deacon Anthony�s questions - how can I answer that question? That is between the parishes and their bishops, who are the overseers of the liturgy. I have received no reliable information whatsoever - whatsoever - as to whether these congregations asked the bishop for an exemption and were denied or allowed.

To John:
I answered above �my asking for� a mandate. The Byzantine Liturgy was a bit more free in its rubrics than the older �Tridentine� Roman Mass, but that �liberty� was a principle? - LOL. There are no rubrics as to �audible� and �silent,� because the question had not yet been asked. Now it has been asked.

�Evangelization� or �sanctification?� Why are these two opposed? How can they possibly be opposed? A sanctified person will also be an evangelized person and vice versa. Jesus: �Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel (= become an evangelized person) will save it. (Mark 8:35)� A little bit too much �hair-splitting� here, I believe.

�His personal liturgical preferences� - answered clearly above.

�In speaking and obtaining a mandate Father David has sat in judgment of previous generations.� My opinion had nothing - nothing! - to do with the mandate, this is a mixing of two different questions. The question here is: have previous generations been wrong in saying the anaphora �inaudibly.� I would tend to say that this has been, in fact, a liturgical �devolution,� but it is clearly not my role as a Christian to �judge� (Jesus: �judge not lest you be judged�) previous generations. We have not experienced their whole situation, and, at any rate, the liturgy not being in the vernacular would have made the whole question a rather moot point, in my opinion. The number of ways in which this rather clear principle has been twisted and misinterpreted is appalling to me.

John: �Does Father David have documentation detailing which portions were taken aloud and which were prayed quietly in Constantinople?� John here is mixing up Constantinople and Syria. We know clearly that the whole anaphora was prayed aloud in Constantinople in antiquity (cf. Taft, Through their own Eyes, p. 166). In ancient times �parts� of the Syrian anaphora were said silently. We do not have actual texts from antiquity - maybe late antiquity. Check any Syrian anaphora today, there are portions to be said aloud (i.e. while bowing, cf. Taft, Through Their Own Eyes,� - a custom (bowing) that may have traveled to Constantinople, though we don�t know for sure). These were called �g�hantha.�, and other parts, for the private recitation of the priest, as for example,�Hear me, O Lord: hear me, O Lord: hear me, O Lord, and have mercy upon us, and may thy holy and living Spirit, O Lord, come and descend upon me and upon this oblation,� the people were singing �kurillison,� a Syriac rendering of �kyrie eleison,� (Brightman, Liturgies Eastern and Western, p. 88)

John: �It seems quite possible [if I said this, everything that follows would be discounted] (and very reasonable) that the structure we Byzantines have today [John does not mean the Restored Divine Liturgy, but the traditional practices - for which he says there is �liberty,�] comes to us from the earliest [what does he mean by �earliest�?] times.� I would say no - absolutely not, cf. Taft, Through Their Own Eyes, p. 166].For more detail on this, see Taft�s article, �Was the Eucharistic Anaphora Recited Secretly or Aloud? The Ancient Tradition and What Became of It,� in �Worship Traditions in Armenia and the Neighboring Christian East,� (St. Vladimir�s Seminary Press, 2006)

John: �Father David suggests that the Anaphora was earlier taken aloud for catechetical purposes,� no, I don�t. I say the exact opposite, that in antiquity, when the anaphora was said aloud, the catechumens - those being �taught�- had been dismissed from the church, because they were not permitted to hear the anaphora, which was therefore excluded from catechesis.

�Curtains.� Clearly this is a red herring. Since the presence or absence of a curtain does not, even today, prevent a priest from saying something aloud. The deposition of the altar was not the same in Chrysostom�s time, and his evidence is from both Syria and Constantinople, as icon screens did not develop until the end of the first millennium.

I apologize for going on and on, but I think the question of the anaphora is the most important question for our liturgical life today.

I find it very hard to believe any argument that the Holy Spirit has been failing to guide us all those years before and after Justinian's attempted and failed mandate. That He would abandon us all these years when the priests were offering the Sacrifice in a different manner than the RDL now directs without option.

"Solid liturgial principles" include the objective recognition of historical reality of usages. The silent anaphora cannot be attributed to a "latinization", as can neither the audible anaphora. It cannot be attributed to attempted unilateral directives to insert or not insert - actually much less than the audible anaphora i.e. Justinian's attempts. It is simply the acquired usage over many, many centuries.

It seems a bit presumptious to say one has the "plan" from the Holy Spirit on where He is guiding us when the received tradition speaks for itself with both uses obviously in the historical corpus. Orthodox churches using the silent Anaphora are not all in decline, that is certainly a fact as well.

Regarding the question of liberty, I would suggest anyone who questions call one or more of the bishops directly, and ask if anything other than the "sole text" of the RDL can be taken, and why or why not. Let them speak, lead, and teach.

I want to respond to a number of Fr. David's points but for now and for clarification:


By Ordo in this context I assumed would be understood the Ordo Celebrationis Vesperarum Matutini et Divinae Liturgiae Iuxta Recensionem Ruthenorum and its translation into English, the first of which that I'm aware being Ordo-English-1955 [patronagechurch.com].



I'm aware of Card. Tisserant's letter [patronagechurch.com] dated September 10, 1941; what is the significance of 09-01-41?



I hope I have understood and used the term in accordance with its use by Card. Tisserant in his letter referenced above, specifically as he says:




I think this is something that is agreed upon by all concerned.



I would like to know more about the "written evidence."


Dn. Anthony

Well, we can all finally agree to that statement! At this point, what are the faithful who study Liturgics, and who try to understand the theology behind the changes to do? We've been stonewalled by our priests (in my case), our bishops and archbishop. Has anyone received a response to their letters? No. Remember NO ONE asked the Liturgical Commission to trash our beloved full Ruthenian Recension, in favor of a neutralized version, one that barely resembles what is rightfully ours.

If you would have given to the people what has been handed down, your position wouldn't be misunderstood.




Here we go again, assuming that the people in the pew are dumb and unenlightened on what is rightfully ours. I think we are all smart enough to understand what the Ruthenian Recension is, Fr. David. Almost everyone here knows that the Red Book is the full Liturgy. And I suspect, many on the forum have experienced it -- unfortunately not in their own Ruthenian Parish but perhaps in an Orthodox Parish. I have experienced it for many years in my Ruthenian Parish. Now it is gone and I am at a loss as to what to do, as I am told there will be no "supplement" for the parishes in the Parma Eparchy.

Be courageous Bishops, and hand down the full Ruthenian Recension as it was approved by Rome in 1964. That's all we've ever needed.

"Be courageous Bishops, and hand down the full Ruthenian Recension as it was approved by Rome in 1964. That's all we've ever needed."

Don't hold your breath Stephanie...I think the BCC is stuck with the RDL. I'll light a candle for you this Sunday. I usually light them at the third verse of the antiphons.

Not for the first time, Father David takes exception to the assumption that he is personally responsible for all or most - or even any - of the elements of the Revised Liturgy that some of the posters are objecting to. In response, perhaps I may offer two points:

a) my book does not either accuse or credit Father David in this matter - the book discusses the innovations themselves, not the question of who may have proposed or insisted upon what.

b) nevertheless, one of the numerous objectionable characteristic of bureaucracies (religious, academic, governmental, or what-have-you) is the habt of the bureaucrats to dodge responsibility by hiding behind each other and saying something like "all I can do is tell you the decision of the committee".

For better or for worse, Father David seems to be the only spokesman of those defending the Revised Divine Liturgy who had some sort of share in producing it. This does not make him personally responsible for anything one cares to object to, but it does explain why he often finds himself in that unpleasant position.

Father David writes that the Internet is not a suitable place to discuss the whole complex of problems. Having entered the lists myself by writing a book, I can agree with him to some extent, while nevertheless accepting that the Internet does at least provide the possibility of obtaining feed-back from those who feel themselves affected by these matters.

If Father David wishes to propose a conference, for example, at which there would be a genuinely free and open discussion of the problem(s), that proposal would be likely to meet with considerable support. But so far, the Forum seems to be almost the only place where any free discussion is tolerated.

Fr. Serge

One wonders if the Hierarchs accepted and Rome approved everything that Fr David suggested. Are there reforms that he suggested that were turned down? Are there reforms that were accepted and approved that Fr David did not recommend? The secrecy continues.

I keep hearing the words, "the bishops decided/mandated/approved/promulgated such and such." This is entirely true as only the bishops can actually promulgate any liturgical changes, once they are approved by Rome, according to our law. But the bishops did not come up with these changes or additions or deletions. They relied on the Committee to do the work, trusting that they are the experts, and then, once Rome approved, released them in January.

Working in a large corporate environment for many years, I've heard this kind of "pass the buck" decision making all the time. "Well, thus and so mandated that we cut expenses, so..." "We've hired an outside firm to look at the way we..." "Mr. So and So pulled me in to re-write the procedures for doing blank..." "I was only following corporate directives from the top, this was not my idea..."

Unfortunately, I fear, the church works in much the same way. This all may be a bit harsh, bit it's human nature not to take responsibility, especially when it upsets many and tips the balance of the way things have been done. I do applaud Father Petras for explaining some things and standing behind the work of the committee.

There is some good in the Revised Divine Liturgy, it WILL make some parishes be more Eastern, IF the rubrics and texts are followed to the letter. I applaud that. There is some bad as well. It moves us farther away from other Greek Catholics who use the DL of St. John Chrysostom, and more importantly, from the Orthodox, about whom we have been instructed, that we should consider their liturgical practice and deviate from as little as possible. We're becoming "A Third Way," to use a well known term.

I don't think that anything that happened on June 29th is going to be rescinded. That's a pipe dream. And the longer that the new Liturgy is used and lived with, it will become "our tradition," who we are, and where we've come from. That makes the future promulgation of the 1941 translation and rubrics even more remote. We can live with it, make the best of the RDL and go on, or we can move on as some have done, to other churches.

This are just some thoughts as this discussion continues. After almost two months for some parishes, or long for others, things have begun to settle down, maybe they should here as well.

John K

Things haven't settled down in many parishes. It will be interesting to see how the RDL will affect the already dwindling attendance at the annunal Mt. St. Macrina Pilgrimage (Otpust').
Many parishes are still having difficulty with the promulgation.
It's sad to hear they are trying to cope with a bad situation. Sad indeed.

Ungcsertesz

I believe that you are correct, John. My initial anger has dissipated as I settle into my new OCA parish. (I love it!) However, there are echos of sadness. I always pray for the BCC.

R

You may be right. But that doesn't make the RDL right. It is a mistake, full of mistakes, and I don't think we should just 'accept' it and play dead. I think as a Church, we deserve better than this.

I for one, will not simply 'accept it', I can't. I do accept that it may take some time, and some effort to get all the mistakes in it corrected, but there is no time like the present to begin. A defeatist attitude serves nothing.

I think the best way to begin to agitate for the mistakes to be fixed, is education, education, education. We have to learn more about our beautiful Liturgy and our wonderful tradition.

We don't need to settle for this terrible book, it is an amatuer, scissors and paste, clumsy, travesty of what our books should be like. I will not accept it.

I want a complete, accurate, faithful, careful, exact, beautiful translation into English of our Slavonic liturgical books. I don't see why we should tolerate anything less.

Nick

p.s. Unlike my friend Recluse, I will not leave this Church for the Orthodox. Maybe that is what the revisionists would like, but it isn't going to happen.

God bless you Nick. I will pray for you as you fight the good fight. For the record, I had other reasons for going to the Holy Orthodox Church, but the revisionist Liturgy hastened the decision.

Getting back to the topic: Is the Ruthenian Catholic Church the only Eastern Church (Catholic or Orthodox) that has mandated the audible anaphora?