www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy Melkite commemoration ... a possible compromise?

At the parish I usually attend (Melkite) the priest commemorates Archbishop Cyril, Patriarch Gregory, and Pope Benedict.

Now, I don't remember where, but somewhere I've heard that the traditional practice is actually for the parish priest to commemorate only his own bishop. I.e. only the bishop commemorates other bishops. (Can anyone confirm this?)

I don't think we are ready to return to that traditional (assuming it is) practice. However, I wonder if a compromise would be possible: Namely, to commemorate not only the Melkite Patriarch and the Roman Patriarch, but all the Catholic Patriarches. It seems like that would make a lot more sense than commemorating some but not others.

Seems a sensible approach. When the Patriarch serves, it is usually he alone who commemorates the Pope.


In parts of the Middle East, the Greek-Catholics do not commemorate the Pope at all. This is sometimes thought to be a consequence of the trouble between Patriarch Gregory II and Pope Pius IX.

Fr. Serge

I've attented Bulgarian Byzantine liturgies a few times and they also commemorated Pope Benedict first and the Apostolic Exarch then.

The Orthodox practice I've seen is - the priest commemorates his bishop, the bishop commemorates the Patriarch (or the Primate), and the Patriarch commemorates the other Patriarchs and Primates (Archbishops and Metropolitans) his church is in communion with.

According to Metropolitan Georges Khodre of Mount Lebanon (Patriarchate of Antioch) - "In mentioning the Pope of Rome in the Eastern liturgies we are inviting the Churches to a practice the East has never known." - http://www.vatican.va/news_services...,_Botrys_and_Mount_Lebanon_%28LEBANON%29

The Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church also commemorates the Pope first, followed by the Metropolitan and Bishop. I have heard (and I could be wrong) that the reason the Bishop of Rome was commemorated was because at the time of Union of Uzhgorod the Ecumenical Patriarch was commemorated and upon entering communion with Rome they just simply switched from the Ecumenical Patriarch to the Ecumenical Pontiff.


If this is the case, I am sure it is, then our Eastern Catholic Churches should return to the Orthodox practice. But I can already see the reaction from some, "they are not Catholic because they don't commemorate the Pope."

Yes, that's pretty much my thinking as well: in principle we should follow the traditional method, but that probably wouldn't work out too well in practice. So some sort of compromise seems to be in order.

The commemoration is about the hierarchy which also represents the communion of the people with the Church. So we the people are in communion with the Church through our Bishop, who is in communion with the Metropolitan, who is in communion with the Patriarch, who is in communion with the Pope. There's no point to commemorate the other Bishops including other Patriarchs.

Exactly. Our parish priest is their by the authority of our local Bishop.
So he/we should commemorate his/our Bishop in our Liturgy.


Which is why our Bishop should commemorate his Metropolitan (or Archbishop in the Greek Usage)


Also, why our Metropolitans should commemorate their Patriarch/major Archbishop/Catholicos and they [the Patriarch] in turn should commemorate the Pope of Rome


And really the Pope in our liturgies. We are in communion with the Pope only through our communion with our Bishop, (through our parish under his rep- the Priest) who is in communion with his Metropolitan, who is communion with his Patriarch, who is in communion with the Pope. Now a Metropolitan Church is different in that case the Metropolitan commemorates the Pope.

I think Eastern Catholics can stress the point of "we are in communion with the Pope" to a fault. Really, we should follow the pattern laid out above (which is the Orthodox Practice) but we don't because we don't want to be accused of not being Catholic. Returning to the Orthodox Practice is part of the courage to be ourselves.

This looks like one of those 'Greek' usage and 'Slavonic' usage things. The Greek usage does not mention the Arch hierarch but the local Archbishop. While the Slavonic usage makes frequent reference by name of the Arch hierarch in the ektenias as well as the local Hierarch.

You need to be very specific about what you mean when you say commemorate. The Russian instructions say that a priest shoudl commemorate the bishop who ordained him (and anyone else he wants to) in the proskomedia.

This is quite distinct from who is commemorated in the ektenias during the liturgy, matins, vespers etc. In Russian practice I know of these are NOT up to the priest or deacon (or at least, there are certain petitions they must say and there may be scope to add additional - I assume there are similar official petitions circulated frequently in other jurisdictions, the required form of ours gets updated every couple of years). For those in communion with the Moscow patriarchate, these petitions will include the patriarch of Moscow as well as local hierarchs. In my old Russian Catholic practice the Pope and local latin ordinary were cited, as the stand ins for the proper sui juris hierarchy which doesn't exist.

An additional pointer, in Russian practice ANY bishop present at a liturgy will be mentioned at the Great Entrance in addition to the diocesan bishop. I don't know where the idea that Deacons (since they are doing it) can't do this comes from?

CCEO Canon 209 requires the Pope to be commerated.

This is Ruthenian and Melkite practice as well. In fact, bishops present will be commerated in the litanies as well.

Quite interesting as we in ACROD have always commemorated the Ecumenical Patriarch. I wonder if that is a leftover from Greek Catholic times in place of commemorating the Pope? It could be though that we are part of the 'diaspora' under the EP's omophorion. The Orthodox Church of Greece or the Czech and Slovak lands do not commemorate any non-present hierarch other than their own Bishop. The OCA does not commemorate the MP and in some of their parishes they do not commemorate their Primate, only their local Bishop. (This has nothing to do with any current issues in the OCA, just a point of information.)

Just so.


It doesn't say that the rest of the Catholic patriarchs must be commemorated ... but that doesn't mean that we couldn't.

I recall a service at Holy Resurection Monastery (CA) held I think once a year and possibly close to Pascha, where all the heads of the different branches of the Catholic Church were mentioned by name.