www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology A few questions

Dominus vobiscum:

I am just another Latin-Rite Catholic with a few questions...

I. Are there altar servers in Divine liturgy? If yes, what roles do they play. I know that until fairly recently in the Latin Rite, serving at Holy Mass was reserved to ordained acolytes.

II. What are the differences between Eastern and Western seminaries/monasteries?

III. Are there any good online videos of Divine Liturgy?

I. Yes, we seem to have a love hate relationship with Minor Orders but we have having a gentleman ordained to Minor Orders by our Bishop on 2/22. We altar boys usually serve without ordination. Perhaps we will fully claim our Minor Orders someday.

II. The Byzantine Ruthenians broke connection with our last two monasteries over circumstances that are still unclear. I can't/won't comment on our seminary except to say that it has very very few students.

CDL

Actually the Melkites seminarians are now studying with the Ruthenians at St. Cyril and Methodius in Pittsburgh.

The problem with ordaining the acolytes is the widespread custom of using young boys for acolytes. I would suggest ordaining readers at the age of 18, and providing them with vestments that actually fit. Later, they should be ordained to subdiaconate. As you may have guessed, I prefer grown men for acolytes (among other things, the prospect of young boys having access to fire is not my idea of a desirable situation).

Fr. Serge

Do they bring in Aramaic speaking priests and deacons to teach the Melkite Liturgy?

CDL

It's the Maronites who use Aramaic in their liturgies.

Melkites liturgical language is usually Arabic or Greek, or the language of the land (i.e., English in the US)--depending on how many of the faithful speak and understand that language.

Thank you all for replies.

Another question, in the Eastern Catholic Churches are there different types of Divine Liturgy? For example in the Roman Rite, we have Low Mass, Sung Mass, High Mass, and two variations of Pontifical High Mass.

What are the vestments for acolytes/altar servers. I wear a black cassock and white surplice when serving.

Mechanical Genie

I tink you will find that a lot of your questions are answered on this Site

St Elias [saintelias.com]

There's masses of information there if you follow the links and I think you will gain a better understanding of how things are structured in the East .

Mechanical Genie:


Christ is in our midst!! He is and always will be!!

What is your source for this statement? Prior to Vatican II, and even today, ordained acolytes are seminarians. If what you post were true, there would never have been a server in a parish. In fact, the custom of having young boys and teenage young men serve was meant to encourage vocations to the priesthood.

If you follow some of the links to the installation of the Patriarch of Moscow and All-Rus, His Holiness, Kirill, you'll see a good example of the Hierarch Divine Liturgy.



Haven't seen this for the past 35 years, since the introrduction of the Missal of 1974. The Liturgy of Pope Paul VI of blessed memory did away with these distinctions.

In Christ,

BOB

Hello!

Thank you all for your replies. They have helped immensely. Haha...if I could have chosen, I would have been born into the Greek Melkite Church (or the Byzantine Catholic)... but Almighty God has deigned me to be a Latin Rite Christian so I say "fiat voluntas tua!"

Theophan- haha, it looks as though we are both somewhat ignorant of each other's rite. In the Latin Rite, the Tridentine Mass is still prayed world wide and in fact, it is doing better than the Mass of Paul VI. I attend/assist the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass almost exclusively when the 1962 missal of Blessed John XXIII is in use.

I am not sure what you are trying to say about altar servers in Roman Rite. Yes, in the traditional seminaries, the minor orders still exist and assisting at Holy Mass is reserved for only ordained acoltyes, sub-diaconates, and diaconates. But I believe is was Pope St. Pius X (it might have been even earlier) that granted an indult to allow young men and boys to assist at the altar due to the expansion of the Church and the lack of seminarians to assist at Mass.

--------

Anyways, I am truly blessed to live where I do. I have 3 or 4 Latin Rite churches that still celebrate the Mass of Pius V (aka Tridentine, or Latin Mass) and I believe 3 Eastern Catholic churches in my area (Melkite, Ukrainian, and Byzantine). However, I am afraid to say that my presence in the Divine Liturgy might make create an awkward situation both for myself and for others in attendance. From my limited experience most Easterns are of European/Hispanic/Middle Eastern descent...I on the other hand am 100% Vietnamese! Haha....although we are the Universal Church I would still feel very out of place (aside from that, inertia is a very potent force!)

There are a very few Melkite parishes in the Middle East which retain Aramaic for liturgical use; none of them are in North America. The usual reason for this is that in a few villages Aramaic is still the local vernacular.

Fr. Serge

I saw a short documentary on these villages which still speak Aramaic. The worry is that Moslem Arabs are starting to settle in them. The priest taking the TV crew around was Melkite.

Genie,

Actually, a long-time member and close friend to us here on the forum is a Russian Greek-Catholic of Chinese ethnicity. Both the Russian Catholic and Orthodox Churches had a presence in China until the Communists took over and most had to flee. Some ethnic Chinese clergy of the Orthodox Church remained and, a few years ago, the last of those presbyters reposed in the Lord at a venerable age - memory eternal.

Also, the Chancellor of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Archeparchy of Winnipeg (unless something has changed recently) is a priest of Chinese ancestry as well.

I seem to recollect that there are a small number of Chinese seminarians now studying for the priesthood with the Russian Orthodox - perhaps someone can assist my memory on that point.

Many years,

Neil

And I'm 100% Filipino!

MG:

I am a Latin Catholic. Other than within the recently instituted Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, the Liturgy of Blessed Pope John XXIII hasn't been celebrated anywhere in the Catholic world for many years. And it's only been recently that Pope Benedict has granted the Motu Proprio to allow its wider use. In most places I'm familiar with I haven't seen a 1962 Latin Mass advertised for the past 40+ years. If you have been attending the Mass of Pius V, you're probably involved with this schismatic sect.

If you're referring to the people who just had their bishops' excommunications lifted, you're talking about people who are not Catholic at all. And our bishops have taught that, preached that, and advised that since the time of the late Abp who started down that path of schism.

Altar servers? I've been an altar server in the Latin Church since about 1967 and have never been ordained an acolyte. I've even trained others to be altar servers. So your statement that only ordained acolytes could serve in such a capacity is simply false. There have been unordained altar servers in parish churches for much longer than the time you state because traditionally a priest could not celebrate Mass publicly without servers. There is an interesting story of a French priest who went to serve as a missionary in North Africa who could not celebrate Mass himself in the 19th century before he had his first convert and then he had to have special permission from Rome to have just one server. So I've got to wonder where you got this notion about altar servers having to be ordained acolytes.

On another note, we refer to the Latin Church sui juris and the Eastern Catholic Churches sui juris. We don't refer to the Latin "rite" or the Easter "rites" any longer.

BOB