Please explain to me: why are so many Byzantine Catholics unwilling to use zeon?
Actually, most Byzantine Catholics have had no say in the matter; most, I think, would be disinterested. BCC misadventures about zeon/teplota reside with the priests (bishops & presbyters) alone.
The Recension has the rite in brackets (
Služebnik, p 267 [
patronagechurch.com] &
1965 Liturgicon, p 41 [
patronagechurch.com] ), indicating a pastoral option proper for its time (ca. 1941 Slavonic / 1965 English) but also, thereby, showing the way, and providing the means for its inclusion.
Also, to put the rite into perspective:
In describing the zeon rite, which appears in the liturgical manuscripts only in the eleventh century, T. argues that the domestic practice of adding hot water to wine was common in the ancient world among both pagans and Jews. Evidence shows that the Byzantines added hot water to the chalice at least from the sixth century, not immediately before communion, but prior to the beginning of the liturgy, when the deacons prepared the bread and wine. Eventually, out of a desire to have a warm chalice at communion time, they began to add the zeon just before the great entrance (when the gifts were brought in procession into the church), and finally (from the eleventh century), just prior to communion, as in the received practice. This new practice appeared in connection with symbolical and theological explanations emphasizing the eucharistic elements as the body and blood of the living, risen Christ. T. admits that such proposals are speculative. They fit the evidence, but large gaps remain, such as the total silence about the zeon in Byzantine sources from the sixth to the eleventh centuries.
BOOK REVIEW:
The Precommunion Rites
Theological Studies, Dec, 2001 by Paul Meyendorff
THE PRECOMMUNION RITES. Volume 5 of A HISTORY OF THE LITURGY OF ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM. By Robert F. Taft, S.J. Orientalia Christiana Analecta, vol. 261. Rome: Pontificio Istituto Orientale, 2000. Pp. 573.
link [
findarticles.com]
