www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy Met. Andrew (Sheptytsky) - "Concerning Ritual Matters"

http://www.archeparchy.ca/documents/Concerning%20Ritual%20Matters.pdf

Here is a link to a PDF format copy of this important 1931 document. What I like here is his argument in favor of liturgical purity so as not only not to offend Eastern Orthodoxy, but also as a positive means of attracting them to union. Of course, in today's setting, such talk would be considered to be naive, with a lot more being up for discussion. However, I like the direction that the Metropolitan was moving in, at the time. One would think, at the very least, that Catholic Eastern Churches would be loathe to do anything liturgically which might offend the sensibilities of our "separated brethren" who happen to share the same liturgical patrimony, especially in light of the 1996 Liturgical Instruction of the Congregation for Eastern Churches!

In Christ,
Dn. Robert

Brother Deacon Robert,

I read the letter and had a much different view. The Latinizations that he listed were clearly abuses and have no place in any Byzantine Church.

However, if he were the Metropolitan of Pittsburgh and issued that letter today he would be chastised severely on this forum. For instance, he wrote favorably about Eastern adaptations of devotions to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. (which are practiced in Rusyn Slovakia today).

Metropolitan Andrew wrote a good common sense letter which reined in clear abuses, but he made no apology for being Catholic.
May we learn from his example to love our Church instead of destroying it from the inside because a vocal minority believes that we should mimic a particular Orthodox Church.

Warm greetings,
Fr.Deacon Paul

Father Deacon Paul,

This is a fascinating statement. Can you please post more about this �vocal minority�? I would like to know more about them. In these discussions about the Revised Divine Liturgy I am aware of the many people like myself who seek that our bishops finally implement the official liturgical books of the Ruthenian Recension published by Rome. And I am aware that there are many like myself who embrace the Vatican directives that there should be no liturgical difference between us and Orthodoxy. But I am unaware of any vocal minority who is seeking that we mimic a particular Orthodox Church (although such would fulfill the Vatican directives given in the Liturgical Instruction, Section 21). Who is this group? And what particular Orthodox Church do they wish to mimic?

Thanks in advance for your response.

John

John,

Your question about mimicing a particular Orthodox Church is an excellent one. In these interesting discussions we have heard specific suggestions that we should do this... or that... becuase that is how the writer's Church does it. But as we know there are various Orthodox traditions and it would extremely difficult to be almost indistinguishable from the Orthodox because of these variing traditions.

I believe that we agree that there really is no need to be exactly like a particular Orthodox Church (with the plausible exception of the Carpatho-Rusyn) because there is nothing wrong with our beloved Church; we are NOT inferior. That is why I get upset with some of the discussions on this forum - they are suggesting that we should be something that we are not, like our Church is inferior and we have to change it to mimic the _______ Church or the _______ Church (fill in the blanks yourself.

I expect that you will counter with the argument that we should be faithful to the Ruthenien rescension; and theoretically that is exactly right. As Byzcat has repeatedly and patiently stated many changes have been made in the past ten years which implement this, such as the filioque in the Creed, infant Communion, Presanctified Liturgy, the typica hymns, etc.

The Bishops of our Byzantine Catholic Church in America, a Sui Uris Church, have met and decided what progress is practical at this time. I personally don't expect that this is the final word. In fact I have already seen in print a slight change in Version B of the Thrice Holy Hymn. The bishops apparently decided to make the present changes, let the people absorb them and adjust, then move to the next step. The bottom line is that to make every possible change at one time is unrealistic, considering the human resistance to change.

Be patient, accept the changes with grace while still voicing a concern for still more changes and corrections to some changes that perhaps were not done perfectly.

Metropolitan Andrew, I believe, voiced this line of thought in the letter to his Ukrainian Church.

In response to my comment about a "vocal minority" I was referring to those who will abandon ship and recommend that others also leave the Church. This is not "graceful" and disrespectful of the Church that I love.

I see that we are already straying from the topic of this thread.

John, what do you think Metropolitan Andrew was saying?

Z'nami Boh.
Fr. Deacon Paul

Father Deacon,

It's more than a theory isn't it?

In terms of mimicking the Orthodox

From the Liturgical Instruction:


Do you agree of disagree with the above quote?

I can't recall anyone calling for us to mimic the Orthodox for the sake of mimicking them.

But when 90%+ of our churches are without Vespers something is wrong don't you agree?

When 90%+ of our churches are without Matins something is wrong don't you agree?

When Proskomedia is being skipped in far too many parishes, something is wrong don't you agree?

When the Canon of St. Andrew is something that has never been performed even once in most of our parishes something is wrong don't you agree?

When Saturday evening liturgies are being celebrated when Vespers should be celebrated something is wrong don't you agree?

When the word 'Orthodox' isn't even used in our Liturgy something is wrong don't you agree?

When Sunday morning Liturgy is over and done with in 45 minutes or less, something is wrong don't you agree?

etc., etc., etc.

Monomakh

Father Deacon Paul,

Thanks for your post.

I agree that there are many suggestions on the direction the Ruthenian Church must go. Father Petras has one idea. Your pastor might have another. A priest in New Jersey will have yet another direction he thinks is best. A friend on the liturgical commission once outlined which changes mandated by the Revised Divine Liturgy (RDL) were the hoped changes of each of the members. That is chaos. That is why I have always appealed only to the official books of the Ruthenian Church. They alone can unite us with one another, with other Catholics of the Ruthenian recension, with the Orthodox of the Ruthenian recension, and with all other Byzantines (Catholic and Orthodox). Change should only be accomplished by Churches working together.

As far as changes mandated by the RDL, I submit that you consider that the mandated changes are not a restoration of the Ruthenian Divine Liturgy. To say that is to claim something that is demonstrably false. In fact the bishops have never suggested that it is a restoration of the official Ruthenian recension and Father Petras has argued on this very forum that the recension is faulty and needs to be improved. Yes, there are a few rubrics in the RDL that do correct a few common problems at the parish level. But all of which were already in the 1964 Liturgicon and it was not necessary to issue a Revised Liturgy to correct them. But there are many rubrics in the RDL that are pure invention, and some that are a reworking of older customs for new purposes. If you have followed these discussions then you know that the revisions are nothing more then the legislation of personal taste in Liturgy. There is no goal of restoring the official Ruthenian recension. If there were, then the bishops would not have prohibited parishes from following it! The bottom line is that it was not necessary to force changes in texts, rubrics, or music. It has only resulted in a crisis in the Church, one that has spiritually hurt a very large number of people. The better way would have been to finally promulgate the Ruthenian recension and gently raise the level of celebration in parishes through education, example, and encouragement over a decade or so.

As far as patience, I am very patient. I have written letters of appeal to Rome and I have strong hopes that Rome will rescind the Revised Divine Liturgy because it is wrong. The RDL is already imploding because of its own flaws, but it would be good to have Rome rescind it and to once again direct our bishops that we need to follow the Byzantine-Ruthenian liturgical books!

As far as your condemnation of those who would choose to worship elsewhere I fear that you will need to add me to your list of those you condemn (I seem to remember that you once encouraged those of us who cannot accept the RDL to leave). I find that the RDL so painful that I can no longer worship in a Ruthenian Church. For now I worship in a Melkite Parish, where the Divine Liturgy is far closer to the Ruthenian Recension than is the Liturgy at the Ruthenian parish. That I find the RDL so painful that I cannot currently worship in a Ruthenian parish is not �abandoning ship�. I stand in strong support of the Ruthenian Church and will be there once the disaster of the RDL is rescinded and replaced with the Ruthenian Divine Liturgy. I both invite and encourage all members of the Ruthenian Church to demonstrate their love for our Church by contacting the bishops and asking them to rescind the RDL, and to finally promulgate our Ruthenian Recension.

I wish I had met Metropolitan Andrew!

I like and agree with his argument in favor of liturgical purity, though I would seek that we do so not so as not to offend Orthodoxy or to attract them to union but because it is the correct thing to do. To be fair, though, even though some of the points he made are quite a product of his time others show him to be a bit of a visionary, as well as being pastoral. Since this was posted in the RDL forum, I will comment and say that I think he would probably find the RDL to be a caricature of the true Ruthenian Liturgy, one that he would reject. Certainly he would call for all Ruthenians (us, the Ukrainians, the Romanians, etc.) to work together for renewal, and would not have supported the Metropolitanate of Pittsburgh leaving the Ruthenian Recension (and, in fact, prohibiting it to be celebrated in our parishes).

His writing does present a very good question. Just how does the RDL contribute to the unity? The liturgical unity of us with other Ruthenians (Catholic and Orthodox)? And the liturgical unity of us with Orthodoxy? I suggest that the bishops� prohibition of the fullness of the Divine Liturgy we share with these others has greatly harmed not only many in our Church but also the Catholic Church itself, and the quest for complete unity with Orthodoxy.

John

Fr. Deacon Paul, no historical document can be removed from the context and the mileu which produced it. In Metropolitan Andrey's case at this time even some of his own more latinized Bishops and clergy were regularly writing to Rome complaining of his "vostochnik" ways, removing Stations of the Cross, devotions to the Sacred Heart, latinizations such as "low Mass", his restoration of traditional Studite monasticism over Latin paramonastic communities (especially the Basilians), etc. Some of what he is saying has to do with paraliturgical customs, which are another thing entirely.

Once again this document shows his genius in fostering the restoration of authentic liturgical life with a very precarious balancing of those dissedent clergy who were tenaciously holding onto Latinized liturgical forms, the Synods of Zamosc and L'viv, and who would have taken such blatant eliminations of the Sacred Heart and other such things to Rome as direct evidence that the Metropolitan, in their eyes, was not a Catholic at all but a crypto-Orthodox (those allegations were also made to Rome about him at the time by one of his own bishops).

We see from the Ordo that was written by his request (starting at about the time of this letter) and finally approved and promulgated by Rome that his heart did, in fact, lie in the desire to promulgate the full and authentic Ruthenian Rescension.

His brilliance was in his vision of gradual restoration, based on fidelity to the received tradition. This letter represents an early step later leading to the adoption of the Ordo and other books in Rome more than a decade later.

Thank God the subsequent hierarchs such as Patriarch Josyp down to our Synod at the present day have continued in this vision, with the Synod making the books from Rome of the "Ruthenian Rescension" to be normative at a recent Synod. Metropolitan Andrey makes the case quite strongly as to the need to carefully guard and preserve traditional practices, restoring when one can when it comes to the Liturgy itself, and not experiment and abbreviate simply for the sake of modernity.

I am puzzled over the insistence that the Ruthenian recension was commonly celebrated. I don't claim to be an expert, and have not been throughout the US attending Divine Liturgies, but I have never in my 50 years of memory seen a Divine Liturgy COMPLETELY conforming to Ordo Celebrationis.

WHOA!!! I did not condemn; you are competely changing the context of my comments and you are wrong!
I am of the opinion that some of the comments are rude and unconstructive and I am offended that we have some opportunists who are encouraging people to leave even before the RDL was promulgated. If this was an Orthodox site then maybe the comments would be justified. If you have read the comments you know that there are non-Byzantines who have severely criticized our Hierarchs.

John, you wrote, ..... you lost some credibility here, for the Ruthenians (Rusyns) do not include the Ukrainians and the Romanians. It's not that I would object to union of these Churches, but they are distinctly separate Byzantine churches in present history.

I agree that Archbishop Andrew was a visionary. But I'm not so sure that he would publicly object to the RDL. Perhaps privately he may have communicated a difference of opinion, but this would have been a constructive action which apparently (in my opinion) did not happen prior to promulgation.

For those who belong outside our Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic Church, perhaps you should contact your bishops and politely ask them to improve the communication of our Eastern Churches.

Fr Deacon Paul

Fr. Deacon, the term "Ruthenian" as used historically at the time of this letter is a far more complex thing, and had meanings far beyond than just a couple of Rusyn Eparchies. It did, in fact, include what is now the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.

It was used canonically by Rome as a general name for the greater part of the Greek Catholic Churches in the former Austro-Hungarian, Russian, and Polish Empires at the time.

Considering the firm and dedicated attempt Metropolitan Andrey made at restoration in the Ordo, I would find it very difficult to believe he would have supported mandated abbreviations, compromise to modern inclusive language, and the formation of new liturgical syncretisms ("Vesperal Liturgy") outside of their original context and liturgical intent. But that is only my opinion.

Father Deacon,

The Ukrainians were considered part of the Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church? I have never heard this before.

I have only Bishop Andrew's writing to ponder, but I read in his letter, the subject of this thread, that he wouldn't publicly criticize a Church action outside his jurisdiction.



The above quote from the Archbishop's letter doesn't support that he would publicly criticize our Bishops'actions.



The above words of wisdom support both sides of our "internal dissension." We should not "mimic", nor should we be closeminded toward working in cooperation with our neighboring eastern Churches with similar customs.

Truly, Bishop Andrew was a visionary and graced by the Holy Spirit with wisdom.

Fr. Deacon Paul

Father Deacon Paul,

Thank you for your post.

I do not believe that I or anyone else has ever claimed that the celebration of the full Ruthenian recension was common. It was celebrated in certain places and those parishes that celebrated it were the ones that were vibrant. But this is the whole issue! The bishops have prohibited the official Ruthenian recension without ever restoring it (as the Vatican�s Liturgical Instruction requires).

For those who have not experienced the full recension I invite you to listen to the Divine Liturgy from Pascha (2006) hosted on this website. You can find it on both the home page and under the �Multimedia� section. I challenge you, Father Deacon Paul, to listen to it and then to tell me why it needed to be prohibited, and the people in the parishes that took a fuller Liturgy hurt by being forced to abandon it.

I�m sorry but I must disagree. Your prior post in an earlier thread advising people who chose to voice their opinion rather then submit without question as a matter of obedience was quite clear. Your post in this thread spoke not of non-Ruthenians but of Carpatho-Ruthenians �who will abandon ship and recommend that others also leave the Church.� Both those inside our Church and those who are Orthodox have every right to criticize our bishops because they have done what is wrong and have spiritually hurt many people. Both have a right to call our bishops to repent of their actions, and to finally do what is right by rescinding the RDL and proceeding with a pastoral implementation of the Ruthenian Recension. I will accept your new comments are replacing your previous comments.

Please see Diak�s excellent post. The Byzantine-Ruthenian Church of Pittsburgh is (was) part of the Ruthenian Recension, and shares (shared) a set of official liturgical books with the other Churches of the Ruthenian Recension, namely the Carpatho-Rusyn (Ruthenian), the Ukrainian, the Romanian, the Hungarian and etc. The books are not ours to edit but are common property of all the Ruthenian Churches, Catholic and Orthodox.

As I stated earlier, the bishops� prohibition of the fullness of the Divine Liturgy we share with these others has greatly harmed not only many in our Church but also the Catholic Church itself, and the quest for complete unity with Orthodoxy.

John

The Admin wrote: "There is no goal of restoring the official Ruthenian recension. If there were, then the bishops would not have prohibited parishes from following it!"


Amen, Amen, Amen!

S'nami Boh

Fr. Deacon, once again one must look at the historical context of the term "Ruthenian", which was used historically by Rome in a far more extensive sense than a couple of eparchies.


I disagree. Once again the historical context must be understood or else there is a risk of quoting out of context. These Redemptorist Fathers, such as Blesseds Vasyl Velychkovsky and Mykola Charnetsky, WERE offering the full Ruthenian Rescension as would later be codified in the Ordo. Blessed Vasyl in his autobiography tells of his joy working in Volyn being able to offer the "full orthodox ritual according to our tradition" at his monastery in Kovel'.

And again the political scenario cannot be divorced. Since these Redemptorists were working in a different political jurisdiction, those also were the established ecclesiastical boundaries. While Metropolitan Andrey did not have direct jurisdiction, and could not publically be involved in their work because of political ramifications, these priests most certainly respected his spiritual fatherhood and availed themselves of it when they were able to visit the Metropolitan.

He asked them to be fully faithful to the received tradition, and while he did not have jurisdictional authority to make them comply, they did so with joy for the Union. He is simply stating he did not know if they also received a similar request from Rome, whether from the higher Redemptorist leadership or from "Pro Russia" to do as he had instructed them and was guiding them spiritually at the time.

He didn't "interfere" directly because they were doing precisely what he would later request to be codified in the Ordo, and he did not want to be seen as publically crossing political boundaries, a very dangerous thing at the time.

Diak,

Exactly. If Met. Andrew was living at that time in a autonomous
"Ruthenian/Ukrainian" political state and not in Poland and free to be true to the Orthodox rituals, the popular Latinizations would've died out. The power of the Roman Catholic
rulers (be it Austria,Poland or Hungary) have always kept the "Ruthenian Recension" Churches from being totally Eastern.

Ungcsertezs

The Romanians are part of the Ruthenian recension?

Dave