www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology When John Paul II speaks, what parts are Byzantines supposed to adopt?

Dear Amado,

Good words from St. Cyril of Jerusalem. The Eastern Fathers sure make good sense.

Paul

Dear Alex,

The above is one of my favorites from the Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom.

Very cool.

He's our Shepherd, East and West.

Paul

I can see that I have sparked a lot of thoughtful consideration by initiating this thread. It makes me glad to be Byzantine, even though I don't always do things the way my more Roman Byzantine friends would like. Having come from an Orthodox church, specifically Roman-oriented influences tend to be more obvious to me, I suppose. Thank you all for your enthusiasm.

Dear Amado,

Congratulations on such a comprehensive presentation.

Even though it is wrong . . .

Alex

Dear Martin,

I don't know about the signal system, but the Pope can and does officiate at acts that do relate to his various roles.

For example, he did beatify a married Roman couple a while back. But their cult is LIMITED to the City of Rome ONLY - a rare example of his exercise of power over canonization as Bishop of Rome - and in this case it was ALSO an exercise of papal authority since only the Pope may beatify and canonize.

But what we are dealing with here is much more "cut and dried" insofar as it deals with the liturgical patrimony of the Eastern Churches.

And it is a "given" that the Pope legislates and proclaims liturgical feasts and other matters ONLY for the universal Latin Church (that is, the Latin Church throughout the world).

The various Vatican documents relating to the life of the Eastern Churches leave no doubt about this especially the one promulgated on January 6, 1996 and that is on the St Elias Church website.

The Divine Mercy devotion is a purely Latin devotion, based on private revelations to a nun, as we know.

The East simply never went into private revelations in a big way in its liturgical piety. The East doesn't believe in any sort of "chasm" between "public" and "private" devotion as often occurred in the West.

The people of the East are well acquainted with the liturgical prayers of their Church, the public liturgy and all that.

The many Canons and Akathists to devotional subjects that exist in the East more than satisfy the religious needs of the faithful - they can be said in private, but are meant to be celebrated as integral parts of the liturgical services.

And the liturgical tradition is based on the common heritage of the ancient Church and of all Christians everywhere - the Scriptures, the Councils and the rest of Tradition.

That is why the idea of elevating a private revelation to a liturgical feast would simply be lost on the Eastern Churches.

And what is it, once again, about the Divine Mercy devotion that the East isn't already celebrating with great zeal?

The "Chaplet" is simply a Latinized form of the Jesus Prayer .

The Water and Blood that poured out of the Side of the Saviour is a great devotional theme of our liturgical heritage. Each time we go to Communion, for example, we kiss the edge of the Chalice as if to kiss the Wounded Side of our Lord.

This devotion adds nothing to what we in the East are already doing liturgically and in our private prayer lives via the Jesus Prayer (but even the Jesus Prayer is performed in Church with prostrations, 1,000 times daily in monasteries and elsewhere).

The Sunday following Pascha is St Thomas' Sunday and to introduce such an unwarranted and Latin feast would be to, for one thing, really upset the liturgical order, chronology and sense of the Paschal period.

So unless we are arguing that the Pope is imposing Latin feasts on the East, and this Pope would NEVER do that, I hope you had a good Divine Mercy Sunday!

Alex

Okay, Alex--you sold me!

But then what role does the rosary, which in my (Latin) mind is a private devotion, play in a church of the Byzantine Tradition? As you have pointed out on numerous occasions, many Eastern Christians, Catholic and Orthodox, utilize this prayer form.

Martin

Dear Alex:


Thanks for your spirited and steadfast defense of the "non-binding" authority of Pope John Paul's proclamation of Divine Mercy Sunday over you, Easterns.

Still, I am left unconvinced that such a pronouncement by the Pope, in clear exercise of his authority as the Universal Pontiff of the Catholic Church, DOES NOT wield any influence nor carry any weight as far as Eastern Catholics are concerned.

I think this is one instance where the Bishop of Rome is exercising his papal preroragatives and not merely his patriarchal authority over the Latin Church.

This reactive interpretation of papal authority appears to me a deflation of the Catholic belief that holds the Petrine Ministry as inherent in the Office of the Pope.

But these discussions are just prefatory to the upcoming "historical" event involving this role of the Pope in a united Church, because renown Orthodox and Catholic thelogians will begin this May dissecting it to the bone:

http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=35614

Could this be THE prelude to the grand mating dance?

AmdG

Dear Martin,

Very good question!

Private devotion allows us to borrow from whomever.

And individual Eastern Churches or any other Churches may adopt liturgical practices from others if they so wish.

The Melkites, for example, formally adopted the Feast of the "Dormition of St Joseph" on March 19th. They also adopted the Feast of Corpus Christi but within a Byzantine context.

The Ukrainian Catholic Church has the Feasts of Christ the King, the Sacred Heart and Corpus Christi, although many parishes no longer keep these as they were adopted at a time when our forefathers thought that all Latin feasts must be observed by the Easterners etc.

The Ukrainian Catholic feast of the Sorrowful Mother or Pieta is interesting.

The history of this feast goes back to Kozak times and there are even pictures with the Pieta that are venerated in Ukraine as miraculous.

The thing is that even the Ukrainian Orthodox observe this feast and in a book by the Ukrainian Orthodox reformer, Met. Basil Lypkivsky (canonized as a saint by his Church), he states that this feast is a "pan-Ukrainian" one that the Russians later expunged wherever their dominion extended over Ukraine.

There is an Akathist for this feast that I have and it is quite moving.

It is a very rare example of a feast that is like a Latin feast, but that was developed in the Orthodox Ukrainian Church and later kept by Eastern Catholics.

The Rosary was used in Orthodoxy for centuries, and is still used on Mt. Athos under a different name. St Seraphim of Sarov who prayed it daily and got his spiritual children to pray it daily said that it was revealed to an Orthodox monk in Egypt in the 8th century.

The Stations of the Cross were so popular during the Baroque era in Orthodoxy that even an Orthodox saint like St Tikhon of Zadonsk had life-size iconic representations of a stations of the Cross in his cell. He prayed the Jesus Prayer constantly, read the Scriptures incessantly and emphasized frequent Holy Communion - a true Evangelical Man of God!

St Peter Mohyla of Kyiv actually developed a devotion based on the Stations that he incorporated into the Lenten liturgy of his Church - the "Passions."

And Metropolitan Innocent of Odessa who wrote the Akathist to the Passion of Christ included a prayer to the Five Wounds of Christ in his original edition - clearly a borrowing from the West that is now deleted from modern Orthodox renderings of his service.

And St Dmitri of Rostov borrowed copiously from Western devotions.

He prayed a Hail Mary at the turn of every hour, prayed the Rosary, the Office of the Virgin Mary (Slavonic editions of this were published at Florence and I've seen online copies!), and also St Bonaventure's "Psalter of the Mother of God."

Another popular private devotion among the Orthodox was the 15 prayers of St Birgitte of Sweden and Russian and Slavonic editions were printed, at Venice especially - one can find them online as well.

Alex

Dear Amado,

You are welcome! Any time!

And just because the Pope didn't qualify his proclamation about Divine Mercy Sunday ("Look, fellows, I'm doing this only for the Latin Church around the world, don't you Easterners get excited by any of this . . ."; , doesn't mean that one may assume what one simply cannot.

The Pope's authority over us is only in terms of faith and morals, with some provision for administration over CHurches without patriarchates.

Liturgically, he keeps his nose out of our business and that is guaranteed by virtue of agreement AND long-standing Vatican policy beginning with the Decree of the Eastern Churches.

The Vatican document of January 6, 1996 that I alluded to is not only the strongest defence of Eastern traditions that I have yet read from any source (Catholic or Orthodox), it revealed to me a number of things about the Eastern Church that I was not aware of until that time.

The feast of Divine Mercy is a Latin one, it is couched in Latin theological terminology and liturgical perspective (that is totally foreign to the East) etc.

Our liturgical tradition is so highly developed with so many more prayers, hymns etc. all integrated within a coherent whole by the Fathers of our Churches.

And they all sing of the Divine Mercy in a way that really transcends, if I may say so, the Latin devotion to Divine Mercy.

Once again, the Pope does not legislate liturgy for the East, as Pope, Patriarch of the West, Pontifex Maximus or Supreme Pontiff of the world and related planets!

And he doesn't have to go around qualifying every action of his explicitly. He doesn't, for example, visit the Church of St Mary Major in Rome and say, "Hang on there, Paisanos! No need to bow so low, I'm only here as Bishop of Rome!"

God bless,

Alex

I guess my parish is an exception...again.

Great Friday, at the end of an almost 2 hour service (and *sigh* before the dismissal) my pastor began the Novena to the Divine Mercy - citing the Holy Father's proclamation that it was for the Universal Church. It was continued at the end of St. Basil on Holy Saturday, as well as after BOTH (midnight & 10am) Paschal Divine Liturgies, and concluded at the end of the St. Thomas/Mercy Sunday Liturgy. This is not the first year for this, either.

Personally I pray the chaplet just about daily - for the conversion of the doctor who thoughtfully built his abortion clinic half a block from our church. That's MY choice - and it is a devotion approved for private devotion by any Catholic - or indeed anybody who wants to pray it. For the record, I have no problem with the Chaplet being prayed by Byzantines - and I know a bunch of Byzantines who are fond of the devotion. I do have a problem with it being prayed publically BEFORE the dismissal - effectively forcing everybody present to participate if'n they don't want to walk out before the end of the Liturgy. But so far, the Bishop hasn't made me pastor.


Sharon

From my readings on the Divine Mercy devotion and the Chaplet of Divine Mercy I have come to the following conclusion, please correct me if I am wrong or if you wish I will cite my sources (that is which paragraphs from the Diray of St Faustina).

From my readings, the Novena that was given to St Faustina was for her own personal use. Only the Chaplet was given for all to say.

I wonder why the Novena has been spread when one knows this.


In Christ,
David

The Feast of Divine Mercy (which was initially granted to the nation of Poland and which has been celebrated within Vatican City) [b]was granted to the Universal Church by Pope John Paul II on the occasion of the canonization of Sr. Faustina on 30 April 2000.

It's up to Particular Churches to celebrate the Feast on Sunday after Easter or not; but the Holy Father intended/intends its celebration by all!

Unless, of course, the "Universal Church" refers ONLY to the Latin Church?

AmdG [/b][/QUOTE]

Dear Amado,

I too was under the impression that the Holy Father had extended the feast to the Universal Catholic Church. In his homily during the canonization Mass for Saint Faustina, the Holy Father stated that the

Then I read the official decree establishing the feast of Divine Mercy published from the Congregtion for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments. You can read it at:
www.petersnet.net/research/retrieve.cfm?RecNum=2822 [petersnet.net]

In the decree, it states: "Acceding to these wishes, the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II has graciously determined that in the Roman Missal, after the title "Second Sunday of Easter", there shall henceforth be added the appellation "(or Divine Mercy Sunday"), and has prescribed that the texts assigned for that day in the same Missal and the Liturgy of the Hours of the Roman Rite are always to be used for the liturgical celebration of this Sunday."

So, according to the decree, the feast of Divine Mercy was established for the Roman-rite.
This however does not prevent Eastern Catholic churches from adopting the feast in the future, if so inclined. There are Eatern Catholics who practice the Divine Mercy devotions privately. There are even Byzantine icons written of the Divine Mercy image, a few of which are very well written.

The Maronites seem to have a strong devotion to Divine Mercy. It is an official part of the devotions that are celebrated at the national shrine of Our Lady of Lebanon.

Dear Griego,

Thank you . . .

Private devotion is another matter, and my grandmother, a Ukrainian Catholic Presbytera, said the Divine Mercy Chaplet daily.

Again, however, Divine Mercy is an Eastern devotion that runs throughout ALL of our liturgical heritage - there is NO NEED to establish a separate day for it when every Sunday, as our Octoechos texts sing, is permeated with meditations and hymns of praise of the Divine Mercy.

Alex

Dear David,

You bring up an interesting point of difference between East and West here.

The East is simply very wary of personal, private revelations, whereas the West seems to thrive on them.

Some have suggested that an overemphasis on sacerdotalism in the West and on Latin that made the Mass the "domain of priests" encouraged the development of private devotions and private revelations that empowered the non-ordained.

In any event, the liturgical tradition of our Church is what we're about.

Alex

Well said!