www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Our liturgical tradition- a response

Well, one occasionally encounters the woman's name "Fern". Does this perhaps honor a sainted rhododendrite?

Incognitus

Rhododendrites are never ferns.

Does this mean that no one is going to assist me in my liturgical ignorance? Or is it simply that I am being entirely too impatient?

Eli

Incognitus is fern away more competent to answer than I - but I'll post something tonight if no one else has answered first.

Fern away? That is marvelous. My poor genious pales. :p

I am still trying very hard to exercise patience. I am simply not admitting to whose!!

Eli

Still at work Patience, patience!

My apologies,
Jeff

Christ is risen!

The unions with Rome that created the Greek Catholic churches of Ukraine and Transcarpathia took place before the reforms of Patriarch Nikon of Moscow. So by the 19th century, the Ukrainian bishops faced a choice: continue using Latinized, somewhat inconsistent but "Rusyn" liturgical books; become more "Catholic" by creating a "model liturgy" that was Byzantine but distinguished itself clearly from Orthodoxy; or to become more "Orthodox" by using Nikonian books, thus giving up the pre-Nikonian rite they had maintained. Obviously, all three choices would have political overtones.

Patriarch Andrew Sheptytsky of blessed memory was originally in favor of the "model liturgy" chosen by the Ukrainian synod (1897), but pastoral visitations convinced him that it was crucial to "purify" the rite of Latinizations, as well as of
confusion that had crept it over time.

Controversy over this process continued into the 1930's, when the whole issue was referred to the Oriental Congregation in Rome. A group of linguists, theologians and scholars, including the noted Cyril Korolevsky, went back to the liturgical books used BEFORE the union with Rome, and tried to harmonize the books used in pre-Union Kiev, remove Latinizations that had crept in, while preserving some things that looked like what we would call "organic progress". The resulting liturgical books were issued in the 1940's.

The project was taken on expressly to revise the liturgical books of the Greek Catholic Church in order to (1) distinguish accretions and Latinizations in text and ritual from authentic traditions, and (2) provide an official liturgical text and rite for our churches. When Metropolitan Andrew received the new Liturgikon, he wrote, "Today, O Lord, you can give Your servant his discharge and I can now die, because all questions of our liturgy are finally settled." In fact, I know of Orthodox seminaries which have used the 1944 Ordo Celebrationis (collection of rubrics, essentially) as a comprehensive reference on the Byzantine-Slavonic liturgical rites.

Two versions (recensions) were produced: the Nikonian "Common Recension" (for Catholic Russians and Bulgarians) and the pre-Nikonian "Ruthenian Recension" (for Catholic Ukrainians and Carpatho-Ruthenians).

The Oriental Congregation promulgated the new liturgical books in 1941 and ordered their use. But no action appears to have been taken in the United States until 1953 (!), when Bishop Daniel (Ivancho) of Pittsburgh wrote to the Congregation, indicating his willingness to use the new books, but requesting certain modifications (many of which were Latinizations). The Congregation rejected most of these requested changes, generally allowing only those which were not Latinizations, but rather old Subcarpathian practices. But the new books were not formally promulgated by the bishop at this point.

When English translations of the Divine Liturgy were made, they were based on the new Liturgikon, but some parishes that celebrated the Liturgy in Slavonic continued to use the old L'viv books (as did the Carpatho-Russian Orthodox of Johnstown). But priests were expected NOT to use the new, deLatinized rubrics where they conflicted with the traditional usages in the US.

In 1970, Bishop Emil (Mihalik) of Parma officially ordered the use of the new Ordo in his eparchy, with detailed instructions to the clergy on how this was to be done. Since the eparchy of Van Nuys was formed from Parma, I believe the Ordo has trhe same status there. As far as I can tell, the new Ordo has never been officially promulgated in the eparchies of Passaic and Pittsburgh.

So to answer your original question: the term "Ruthenian Recension" refers to a set of standard Church Slavonic liturgical texts, representing the Byzantine-Slavonic liturgy as celebrated in "Greater Ruthenia", but with many Latinizations removed and local variation harmonized to form a consistent whole. Even those who champion its application and use (myself among them) often object to one or another aspect of it -- e.g., if the bishops announced that the books were to be used as is, but translated into English, there would those who wished strenuously NOT to celebrate the Feast of the Sacred Heart, or to replace existing Presanctified Liturgy customs with the older form in the Ruthenian books.

I hope this helped.

Yours in Christ,
Jeff Mierzejewski

My compliments. Your presentation is exceptionally clear. It is not easy to write a somewhat convoluted chronology in brief. I will be looking at it more closely today.

For now I want to just double check the statement that intrigued me, and that is the statement that what was being referred to as the Ruthenian Recension was in fact the Russian Recension.

You are now saying that what Incognito was referring to as the Ruthenian Recension was in fact the Ruthenian Recension, and not the liturgy of the Nikonian Reform, which is what I ordinarily hear in an OCA church today, with the third antiphon being the chanting of the Beatitudes among other things particular to that recension. Am I getting closer to understanding?

Eli

Sorry. There is a PS to this. I have heard older Ruthenian priests say that there was a time when the Ruthenian Byzantine liturgy in this country did include the Beatitudes as the third antiphon. So that was the source of my interest and a bit of my confusion.

That sounds like the Reformed Nikonian liturgy to me.

So is the "new" liturgy going back to the pre-Nikonian recension? and the people don't want that?

Of course they say that the Nikonian reform restored ancient practice, so one can get a tad confused about what is the most ancient rite that is organic to a more recent ethno-geographic location.

Eli

I am being patient of course. I just don't want to loose track of the request for further clarification.

Eli

The "Ruthenian Recension" - a term that did not come into use until the reform of the 1940s - was supposed to present the "Ruthenian" worship as it had been at the time of the Union of Brest. But this is not what happened.

For several reasons, other models were chosen - the Greek Euchologion of Benedict XIV (which had been translated into Church Slavonic at the request of Metropolitan Heraclius Lisovsky) and at least to some degree the Nikonian books. I shall not speculate as to why this happened, other than to suggest that at the time the commission was working the pre-Nikonian books were so scarce, and so were the books used at the time of the Union of Brest, that the commission may have felt that there was simply not enough material.

But what does this have to do with the Beatitudes? The use of the Beatitudes as the third antiphon is quite well established.

Incognitus

So sorry that I cannot remember where I heard it or when but I distinctly remember hearing someone say that the singing of the Beatitudes as the third antiphon was a Russian practice and not part of the Ruthenian tradition. I had also heard from Byzantine Catholic priest that the Beatitudes were once sung in the divine liturgies of the Ruthenian Byzantine Church. That is what they learned in seminary.

So when I hear the Beatitudes sung in the liturgy that is in current use in the OCA for example, then I think "ahhh this is what was meant that it is a Russian tradition." And when I received brother Michael's words the other day then I thought "Oh this business of the Beatitudes as the third antiphon must be part of the Nikonian reformed liturgy."

Perhaps I have been mislead? Or was not in a position to really put what I was hearing into perspective.

Clearly it's still a little fuzzy, now that you've asked and I don't know what to say precisely.

Eli

Somehow brother Jeff, you became brother Michael. What an Arch error.

Eli

Christ is risen!

Pre-Nikonian? Actually, something a little different is going on here.

In the GENERAL Byzantine tradition, the first Antiphon of the Divine Liturgy is Psalm 102, "Bless the Lord, O my soul"; the second Antiphon is Psalm 145, "Praise the Lord, O my soul", followed by "O Only-Begotten"; and the third Antiphon is the Beatitudes, followed by appointed troparia. Al three end up being about the same length. By custom in many places, these are greatly abbreviated.

On feast days, there are proper antiphons which replace Psalms 102 and 145 (sometimes referred to as the first two stases of the Typical Psalms, or just as the Typical Psalms) and the Beatitudes.

A particular Ruthenian custom is to extend Paschal observances to larger parts of the year. One of these local traditions is to use the Paschal antiphons (on Sundays: "Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth"; "Be gracious to us, O God and bless us" plus "O Only-begotten"; "Come, let us sing joyfully to the Lord") throughout the year, anytime there are no proper antiphons for the day.

Our Church Slavonic prayer-books differed somewhat; I have one copy of the Velikij Sbornik (people's prayerbook) which gives only the Sunday and weekday Paschal antiphons, and another which has both the antiphons, and the Typica and Beatitudes.

The official Ruthenian Recension books specify that "the antiphons or typika" are sung, thus blessing both options. The Apostol (calendar and Epistle book, more or less) often specifically assigns that the Typika are used on certain days in the year, though I haven't yet discovered why on those days and not on others.

When the Divine Liturgy was released in English in booklet form in 1965, ONLY the first and second antiphons (Sunday and weekday) were given; each was abbreviated to one verse. The Typika and the third antiphon (psalm or Beatitudes) were omitted entirely.

In the 1978 service book, the first and second antiphon are given (first verse of each in large print, followed by two more verses in small print); the Typical Psalms (one verse each) are given as an alternative. In place of the third antiphon is a note: "If it is the custom in a parish to use the Third Antiphon it is sung here", but no text is given for the psalm or Beatitudes.

The proposed service book has the first, second and third Antiphons (Sunday and weekday), with the Typical psalms AND THE BEATITUDES as an alternative, with a note that the Beatitudes are to be used as the third antiphon whenever the Typika are sung for the first and second antiphons. Music is provided in each case, with both simple and solemn melodies for the Typika.

One controversal decision has been to print only one verse of each psalm in the service book (this is the current practice in much of Passaic), though I understand that the additional verses will be in the Cantor's Companion being prepared by the Music Commission. On the other hand, the new service book will have the third antiphon and Beatitudes, which were often omitted in the past.

To sum up: the Paschal antiphons throughout the year is a Ruthenian thing, which is retained in the Ruthenian recension - though I doubt it is either pre-Nikonian, OR a Latinization. It's just our way of doing things.

Yours in Christ,
Jeff Mierzejewski

Obviously the choice of which Antiphons to sing at the Enarxis is not a Latinization, since the Latins do not have the Enarxis.

The pre-Nikonian tradition gets involved only insofar as the Old Ritualists continue to chant the appointed troparia which are intercalated at the Beatitudes. In this they are not alone: the Serbs do the same thing and so do several monasteries, as well as some parishes which have been influenced by the monastic usage in this matter.

However, not all examples of laziness need be Latinizations! From what little evidence exists, it appears that the chanting of the Beatitudes as the third antiphon of Sunday fell out of use in Galicia towards the end of the nineteenth century. A decree proposed for adoption at the 1891 L'viv Synod would have confined the two Psalms and the Beatitudes to non-parochial monasteries (no reason is given for this). Fortunately the decree was never adopted by the synod, but since it was printed in the 1905 Liturgikon, it came into practice in many places. The books of the reformed "Ruthenian Recension" corrected this, but restoring the two Psalms and the Beatitudes has taken some decades.

Meanwhile the deletion of the Beatitudes has two possible effects:

either a) one omits the Small Synapte and Third Antiphon completely and has the Little Entrance during the Monogenes,

or b) the deacon, priest and acolytes must race like gazelles to accomplish the Little Entrance in the brief time allowed by the ferial Third Antiphon.

Neither of these is particularly desirable.

Incognitus

So these prayerbooks were brought to this country and were used at the discretion of a bishop? Or at the discretion of individual pastors?

Are there none alive who can answer you last question?

Eli