www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy Is the RDL a product of what is wrong in the BCC?

This thread is rapidly being derailed into another "I don't like the music" thread rather than staying on course. Just saying the music "stinks" without any academic proof is a thread derail, red herring, wild goose chase or any other way of saying it. Start a new thread regarding the music rather than derailing this one, please.

As the thread was originally posited is a good topic to think about how the RDL came about in the context of the BCC's history.

The music has been discussed at great length here on the Forum. I know quite a number of priests, cantors and faithful and the general consensus is that the new music isn't very good. Speaking as someone who has been a cantor for 30 years I agree with them. We have had lengthy discussions on several examples and it would be easy to take a copy of the new Pew Book and mark it up to identify the problems along with some simple solutions.

As a very short explanation one needs to understand that chant serves the text. When you set chant you just can�t erase the Slavonic text from Bok�aj, stuff in the English text, and claim that you�ve set chant and it matches Bok�aj. The tones are certainly flexible enough to be adjusted to serve the text (and we can see examples throughout Bok�aj where a repeatable melodic phrase was abbreviated or extended to serve the text). The settings for the fixed texts are approached similarly, but in the end one has to make sure that the English text is properly accentuated and that the settings are not strange sounding to the American ear (i.e., American ears do not like too many notes to a single syllable or a single phrase repeated over and over again). The style used to set the new settings is clearly one where the chant was considered to be paramount and the text secondary. That is why it doesn�t work very well.

Never dismiss the woman who comes to you after Liturgy and says �the music sound funny�. She may not have musical training to explain what she means but that does not mean what she is saying is not valid, or that she just all emotional. The Revision Commission left the text of the Lord�s Prayer alone because it was memorized and it would harm people to force them to change it. That same reason applies to much of the rest of the text of the Liturgy and also to the music. A literal application of Bok�aj � even if it had been done correctly � is not a good enough reason to hurt people by taking away what they have memorized. Liturgical prayer is, after all, the very way a person relates to the Lord. People expect stability from their liturgical relationship to the Lord. Memorized music is part of that. Put aside the English texts for the moment. Cantors who can sing Slavonic will understand this. Try singing "Dostojno Jest" or �Anhel vopija�e� from Bok�aj note-for-note in almost any parish. You�ll soon find out that there will be a mini-uprising from the faithful because the way it is notated in Bok�aj isn�t the way they grew up singing it. The Church in Europe has moved on and they don�t sing it exactly like Bok�aj, either. Chant is not canonical. It can be adjusted to best serve the text. It can grow. It should not hurt people (taking away their experiences and their memories), even if unintentionally.

If the music sounded good in Slavonic and was pleasing to the ear and sounds horrible in English, the problem is not with the original Slavonic. It�s with the English language setting.

Actually, we haven't had much experience of people saying "the new music sounds funny." In fact, no-one has said it to me at my parish. It might be because they don't want to talk to me, but Etnick's experience is not mine.

As for whether there was sufficient reason to change what people had gotten used to, that's a different issue, and a very legitimate concern.

While that is all well and good as an explanation of what you feel is wrong with the music, it still evaded the OP question. Which was: is the RDL the product of issues within the BCC? We seem to go in circles about what is wrong and right with the music, even though I will disagree regarding the notion that 'nobody' sings or ever sang Bok�aj as notated in their parish. This thread had the possibility of being a less emotional introspection on how and why the RDL came about and became what it is today. Oh well...

Actually, that is the issue in the original post that started this thread. What drove the idea that there needed to be particular changes. Did this come about in a vacuum or was there real push for change?

I agree with Steve that this thread is falling into another �I don�t like the music� thread. We could easily cover that again and review the new settings page by page and provide the academic proof a few need before they will understand along with possible corrections. That is what should have been done early on. I work for a software development company. It is standard procedure for a software coder to put his work before a large review team to identify problems in the code. Fixing the problems early on means better code, with a smaller probability it will be rejected by the customers.

This is very possibly the most insightful thing Steve has posted on the Forum. It deserves a good discussion unencumbered by side discussions of chant and even the RDL itself. The problems with the RDL are themselves symptoms of the larger problem in the Ruthenian Church. Each generation of bishops re-invents our Liturgy. None will accept the official liturgical books earlier bishops asked Rome to prepare for us - books the Orthodox accept and embrace; books our brother Greek Catholics and Orthodox in Europe are thriving with. The root of the problem likes with our lack of self-identity. Who are we? Lex orandi lex crendti. Certainly a worthy topic for discussion.

I feel I must elaborate on what I originally posted. Last March I learned that a BC parish in my area, (in fact I grew up in the parish), was using the RDL. I decided to go to the Saturday liturgy to check it out.

All seemed normal until "Shout joyfully to the Lord all the earth" came. I couldn't believe my ears. The book almost fell out of my hands. Now I'm not a cantor, or a musician, heck I can't even read music. But what I heard just was a big let down. It just didn't sound right.

Everyone here knows I'm Orthodox now. However, I dearly love the chant that I grew up with. Even though I'm no longer Byzantine Catholic, I felt a sense of betrayal. How can the one thing that makes the Ruthenian Byzantine Liturgy what it is suddenly be so abruptly changed. It's a big disservice to the older people who have been singing it for 60 plus years.

Gee, what a novel idea!

Here are some thoughts and hypothetical musings on trying to get to the issue (see initial post) of the underlying reasons based on the four criticisms of the RDL give in a previous post. It is a stream of consciousness rendering so pardon its unpolished, choppy nature.

1. Inclusive language-"Loves us all" instead of "Loves mankind". "Men" omitted from the Nicene Creed.

Is this the following of a fad, a false agenda? If so, what is the cause? Are there others? Why the proliferation of honorifics in the liturgy that are not there (cf. Vladyko)? What is this saying? How well is the sensus fidelium of our church respected? Have we dumbed-down the language of the liturgy wanting to be relevant rather than correct? Are we praying with speculative translations symptomatic of scholarship run amuck?

Having made this change are we now committing ourselves to an active role in stamping out sexism in the church and society. This is a significant change in the translation but isn�t it just tokenism if we are not intending to commit ourselves to further preaching and teaching the evils of non-inclusive language. Are we consistent, focused? Do we have a vision?

What other or different form of activism is proper or more proper to our church?


2. Bad music- Supposed to be faithful to the original, but nothing like the people have sung and loved for years.

What is the breath of our chant heritage and its organic development? How and why did the JMT era come about? Was it a good decision? Were others better suited, by virtue of their immersion in the living chant, to at least have a voice in directing this project?

The codification of our chant heritage is worth it, every penny, if it contributes to our custom of congregational singing (?): what did this one cost; who paid for it? Parishes are closing, monies are generated: are they being properly reinvested in evangelization, starting mission etc.? Should there be greater openness on financial matters, especially for controversial projects. Is our church properly up to date in using modern sources for disseminating information? Are we still in the cloak-and-dagger or siege mentality approach to decision making? ... is that ok or not?


3. Omitted litanies between the antiphons.

Are we to preserve are unique heritage in the Ruthenian Recension? Is the Recension given by Rome correct or flawed in the way a �single man� (?) etc. developed it? Are we now cut off from it - we are unable to celebrate it in English - under the dictates of the RDL promulgation? Are we still in accord with the other churches using the Ruthenian Recension? Should we be? By significant departures in flow and rubrics are we further diluting our heritage? Should our church be actively restoring a married priesthood? Should we be restoring the minor orders and then make proper use of them in enriching our liturgy and parishes?

4. No Slavonic in the new book.

Are we, should we be, ethnic parishes? Are we non-ethnic parishes that have and want to preserve, where possible, our ethnic heritage? Are we to be/become solely an American-culture-oriented church. If the later, how does it square with a rigid approach to the chant we use, the only-what�s-in-the-book! aproach? Are we acting consistently?

Dn. Anthony

As I see the problems, they are even more universal than the Ruthenian Church--they are symptomatic of the Catholic Church in the United States with a "Ruthenian twist." Orthodoxy itself is not immune from the same fate.

I take this passage from Father Barbour to sum up the main point:


http://www.balkanstudies.org/1998/barber.htm


My emphasis.