www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Daily Liturgy

In another thread, the following quote can be read:

With regards to kneeling, Church history and Orthodox tradition teach that at the beginning of Christianity, everyone participated in the Divine Liturgy daily, not just on Sundays. Since they knelt during the daily Liturgies, they did not kneel on Sundays.

If at the very beginning, the custom was daily Liturgy, how did we come to the customs that prevail today? How is it that now daily Liturgy is not the normal practice of Eastern Christianity, while it is of Latin Christianity?

In point of fact, it was never the custom of the Church of Constantinople or its offshoots to celebrate the Eucharist daily (See Taft's essay "On the Frequency of Communion", in Beyond East and West). The Byzantine Churches tended to view the Eucharist not merely as a meal, but as a banquet, and NOT celebrating on a daily basis (outside of monastic and certain cathedral settings) reinforced that attitude: the non-liturgical days reinforced the notion of the Eucharist as being something out of the ordinary.

You will note in an earlier post on the subject I said that the idea that kneeling began because the people were not attending liturgy daily was an ex post facto rationalization of current useage.

Taft's excellent book on the Liturgy of the Hours in both East and West (whose exact title escapes me presently on account of pre-moving chaos in my library) makes it clear that daily liturgy was NOT a custom of the early Church, but that daily attendance at what we now call Matins and Vespers very much was; indeed, he cites an impressive number of the Fathers who argued that such attendance was imperative.
Taft regards daily Eucharist as a very late, very modern, very Western phenomenon, introduced in the West following the 12th century mendicant orders and then taking off with a vengeance in the 16th century, largely--but not entirely--under the Jesuit dispensation from prayer in common. By the time of Trent, he argues, the liturgy of the hours qua liturgy (ie., as work in common of the people) was almost entirely replaced with the "breviary" as a private prayer book. The tradition of the hours sung in common--never mind in parish churches--was then dead in the West and daily Mass grew to replace it.
As for the question, Why do many Eastern parishes not celebrate the hours in commmon, Taft does not give much of an answer. What are the thoughts of the Forum? Is it a result of Eastern churches existing in a Western context, where--not to put too fine a point on it--a "crackerjack sacramentology" (to use the fine phrase of someone on here whose name escapes me) exists, and no service is worth attending if you don't get a 'prize,' ie., sacramental communion?

Having just posted that, I of course remembered something else I wanted to add, viz., that daily Divine Liturgy in Eastern monastic communities IS a custom--at least in the Ukrainian churches with which I am familiar. The origins of this tradition are unknown to me.

Dear Adam,

Daily Divine Liturgy is a custom throughout our Church and the origins of it are in the Latin Church . . .

Alex

Dear Brothers,

I totally agree with the jist of what's being said in this thread. But only, I think there is a western exception to the rule. Did not the Anglican Church maintain the custom of celebrating the Canonical Hours in common well after the Reformation?

Der-Ghazarian

Dear Der-Ghazarian,

Yes, indeed!

The Anglican Book of Common Prayer is a revised version of the Benedictine method of reading scripture sequentially and reciting the Psalms.

Cranmer "squeezed" the Morning Hours into Mattins, established a Midday service with Litany, and then had Evensong and Compline later in the day, although Morning and Evening Prayer were the two "hinges" of the Anglican Office.

In the reign of King Charles the First, the family of the Anglican Deacon Nicholas Ferrar retired to Little Gidding where they celebrated the Prayer-book Offices daily in the Chapel of their semi-monastic community their.

They also recited 12 psalms at the turn of each hour throughout the day - and night - thus reciting the Psalter, in accordance with Coptic monastic practice, twice in one day.

Alex