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In connection with the recent 75th Anniversary of the Pittsburgh Metropolitan Province, a Directory was published containing histories and photos of each of the parishes in the four eparchies. What is striking is how many chuches now have icon screens (not all of which, to be sure, are artistic triumphs). Nonetheless, it is encouraging to see our churches looking the way they should (or used to in the case of those which removed iconostases or chose not to install them when new chuches were built.) Clearly, this is the result of the right kind of leadership. The Directory also contains an excellent history of the Metropolitan Province.

A copy of this directory was placed on every seat at every table at the banquet. Everyone who attended the banquet got a copy.

Joe Prokopchak
archsinner

John,

Many of the new icon screens are stylized atrocities. We still have the NEED to see the priest't back and these peek-a-boo screens make me wonder why we even have them. Oversized doors and big voids so we can see the altar as if we are pretending the iconostasis is not really there. They are just as bad as having no icon screen. We are still embarassed about ourselves. It shows - look at the iconostasis at the Greek Catholic Union Resort - St. Nicholas Chapel? What a waste! Poor taste and lots of money down the drain.

Elias

>>>Many of the new icon screens are stylized atrocities. We still have the NEED to see the priest't back and these
peek-a-boo screens make me wonder why we even have them. Oversized doors and big voids so we can see the
altar as if we are pretending the iconostasis is not really there. They are just as bad as having no icon screen. We
are still embarassed about ourselves. It shows - look at the iconostasis at the Greek Catholic Union Resort - St.
Nicholas Chapel? What a waste! Poor taste and lots of money down the drain.<<<

While I agree that many of the more recent iconostases I have seen are aesthetically inferior (some of them look like wrought iron fences), in point of fact, the closed, three-tier iconostasis is mainly a Russian development of the post-17th century period. For much of the Byzantine and post-Byxantine period, and in many areas outside of Russia, the iconostasis was lower and much more open. The purpose of the iconostasis was to serve as a symbolic boundary between heaven and earth, but through exposure to Latin "magical sacramentalism" after the fall of Constantinople, a feeling gradually emerged, alien to earlier Byzantine theology, that the Holy Mysteries were somehow the exclusive preserve of the clergy, so that the laity were not worthy to lay eyes upon the Holy Table. Hence the custom of closing the doors for much of the Divine Liturgy in the Russian useage, and even more striking,the introduction of the curtain to close off the Table even when the doors are open. If anything is a latinization, it is this attitude towards the Sacraments.

The Nikonian Reforms never reached into the sub-Carpathian region, and we as heirs of the Podskarpatsko Rusyn Byzantine tradition follow a pre-Nikonian recension and useage, one which is in many ways more authentically Byzantine (i.e., following the useage of the Great Church of Constantinople) than either the Greek or Russian Churches--for which, of course, they accuse us of all sorts of latinizations, not recognizing the beam in their eye as they point to the mote in ours.

Those who have researched the traditinal useage of our Church before the union, as found, e.g., in the 1629 Liturgicon of St. Peter Moghila and other pre-Nikonian service books (which, by the way, are exceedingly rare because they were ordered destroyed by Tsar Alexis) indicate the extent of the changes to the style of the Russian Liturgy, including the style of the iconostasis and the manner in which the doors were used during the Divine Liturgy.

It is significant that a good many Orthodox Churches are now modifying their iconostases to make them more open. While the traditionalists decry this as creeping modernism, in point of fact it is a restoration of the Byzantine rite to its authentic form, and a scraping away of the various inauthentic accretions that marked Orthodoxy in its 19th century form.

Stuart,

Of course, you are correct. I am just whining because if one is to build an iconostasis - one should do it right. Beauty can be found in any style of iconostasis. But if we are to do it more authentic then we should not even have an iconostasis but a chancel-like rail (with optional columns). Bring back the ambon in the center of the church. But this won't happen because many have the NEED to see the back of the priest. Forget the scriptures. We need entertainment, no?

While we are at it, let's bring back a separate room for the Offertory before liturgy. It is funny that the preparation table is 'inside' the altar thus the priest looks like he is mimicking a coockoo clock. He he he! Maybe we should dismantle the icons so we can see the priest properly like in the older churches before the 8th century?
This seems to be what we are trying to do with peeckaboo icon screens.

Your wrote, "Hence the custom of closing the doors for much of the Divine Liturgy in the Russian useage, and even more striking,the introduction of the curtain to close off the Table even when the doors are open. If anything is a latinization, it is this attitude towards the Sacraments."

I think you got it wrong, Stuart. The Latin approach is to 'EXPOSE' the eucharist for adoration - NOT just simply consuming it as in the East. Greek Catholics follow this practice when they try to copy the practices of the West. Usually, this is due to their inferiority complex.

Elias


[This message has been edited by Elias (edited 11-09-1999).]

>>>While we are at it, let's bring back a separate room for the Offertory before liturgy.<<<

I have never been in a Byzantine Church, whether Orthodox or Catholic, in which the skeuophylakion was actually separate from the sanctuary. In fact, in the Byzantine rite, at least since the 14th century, the Proskomide has always been a small table mounted to the left of the Holy Table, and the procession of the Great Entrance reduced to a vestigial movement from the sanctuary, to before the Ambo, back into the sanctuary (though personally, I have to say I prefer the Greek useage, where the gifts are carried around the Church and back up the center aisle to the Slav useage of passing before the Ambo).

I really don't see how the older practice of a separate skeuophylakion and a true processional entrance could be made to work given the organic changes to the Byzantine rite over the course of the last 600-odd years.

>>>I think you got it wrong, Stuart. The Latin approach is to 'EXPOSE' the eucharist for adoration - NOT just simply consuming it as in the East. Greek Catholics follow this practice when they try to copy the practices of the West. Usually, this is due to their inferiority complex.<<<

We are actually talking about two separate Latin practices. Practice number one, of which I was speaking, was the tendancy to view the sacraments in near-magical terms, whereby the priest, invested with special powers, effects the transformation of the elements in a manner unfit for profane (lay) eyes. It is essentially a characteristic of excessive clericalism, which was picked up by the Eastern Churches after they began sending their students to Italy and France for education. I believe both Schultz and Taft speak about this in their respective books on the Byzantine Liturgy.

Practice number two, Eucharistic adoration, of which you were speaking, is an outgrowth of the clericalism manifested in practice number one. As priests assumed to themselves all of the congregational responses of the Latin liturgy, that left the people with nothing to do. In fact, since the priest was praying silently throughout, there were no verbal cues to help the people to follow the liturgical action. Hence, the elevation of the host assumed a much greater significance than it had prior to the Middle Ages, for it was the only time that the people knew something really important was happening. By a process of reductionism, the elevation became THE defining moment of the Mass for the Latin laity, and the vision of the host took on a life of its own. Eucharistic adoration outside of its liturgical context became an ingrained part of Latn piety--probably against the wishes and better judgement of the hierarchy--so that by the 13th century we find Thomas Acquinas writing the rites of the Corpus Christi ceremony. Deprived of a meaningful liturgical role, the people invented alternative, paraliturgical rites in which they could have a real voice.

So as you can see, the two phenomena have a common origin, but only the first had any real effect on the Byzantine Churches (prior to the unions). I think this is because magical sacramentalism is a mental attitude, and one which tended to reinforce the vanity of the clergy, whereas Eucharistic adoration would have required a very tangible change in the liturgical life of the Byzantine Churches--and that was the one thing that could not really be changed without inspiring serious popular discontent (remember the Old Believers). I think that is why, except in some Melkite dioceses, Benediction never became an integral part of the liturgical life of Uniate parishes.

Perhaps this thread shold move to a different forum?

StuartK has offered several very useful perspectives on this difficult issue of the aesthetics of ikon screens. Two of them (in my humble opinion) deserve further discussion and emphasis.

The first is the development and influence of "clericalism" within Orthodoxy in general and within the Carpathian area and/or Uniate Churches more specifically.

The second is the presence of "Eucharistic Adoration" outside of the liturgy, more specifically "Benediction with the Blessed Sacrament" within the Uniate Churches.

I would be interested in the experiences/observations of other folks in these areas.

For the moment, I would simply note that Benediction was a very popular service when I grew up in a "Greek-Catholic" (Ruthenian)
parish in the 1950s and 60s. I have relatives who have had trouble accepting the Pre-sanctified Liturgy for Lent because it replaced the "Lenten devotions" they were familiar with (and devoted to). Just this past Thanksgiving I was visiting my sister, who at one point broke into song with the haunting (Polish I'm told) melody that was used at that service - and she even remembered a few of the Slavonic phrases. (I'm not sure what to make of the fact that I can't recall what the context was, i.e. what it was that led her to that remembrance!

My impression is that, at least in the twentieth century in the USA, benediction with the Blessed Sacrament WAS quite popular in many Uniate parishes. I am NOT saying that we should continue it, but I would say we need to take seriously the pastoral needs of people who used these services as an important part of their devotional life for many years.

Again, I would be interested in the experiences and perspectives of others.

Phil Yevics