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Subdeacon Randolph,

The Proposed Text is here second post:
https://www.byzcath.org/cgibin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=001399

Fr. Deacon Lance

No, Dave, you are not correct. This was discussed last year, when Fr David was accused of "hating" litanies. I believe you took part in that discussion (not the accusation). If my understanding is correct, what you call the "Revised Liturgy" will be similar (except for a few textual changes) to the Divine Liturgy you fondly remember celebrated at Saint Stephen's.

Except for the minor litanies, all the litanies are retained as you remember them at Saint Stephen's.

The administrator has asked four questions.

1) why I believe the proposed changes to be pastoral -
that is really long and requires much nuanced discussion. I wish I had the time for a long essay on this. However, the best you're going to get is my column in the newspapers (Horizons, ECL, BCW and The Sower)which began in June of 2002, but speciically as a commentary on the Liturgy in July of 2003. I know you've said newspaper articles aren't theological enough, but it's what I'm doing now;
2) I am not the one to ask about mandates. I mandate nothing, only the bishop can make liturgical mandates. Only an observation - without some mandates, liturgy becomes chaos. The practice of the public recitation of soem of the presbyteral prayers has been around for quite awhile, and perhaps the bishops feel this is the way to go now. We are not just "beginnning" an experiment.
3) this depends on our understanding of "traditional" Liturgy. I believe the Liturgy as done now - officially - in Parma, Van Nuys and Passaic (mostly) is quite in keeping with tradition, and that, therefore, the traditional liturgy is not unpastoral. So there is no problem. A counter-question, are we then the only branch of the Byzantine Church - Catholic and Orthodox - who must wait for the Spirit to lead the others before we follow the Spirit too? The point is that we have the same right to act for the pastoral good of our people as any other church.
4) what great harm will come to the Ruthenian Church if the traditional liturgy remains the standard.
I think the "traditional liturgy" is the standard, and that great good will come of it. "Great harm" needs to be defined. I think that if one person leaves and loses his or her soul, that is great harm. The Good Shepherd leaves the 99 to find the one sheep. This is to make a point by hyberbole - of course, the reality is that no matter what action or inaction we take, there will be consequences. We must be aware of these consequences and choose the most Christ-like path. You said you are concerned "when anyone justifies change by considering it to be pastoral." I fear when pastoral consequences are not taken into account.

An historical PS. I said that we make liturgical decisions out of political considerations, this always leads to disaster. The Sheptytskij - Korolevskij project of restoring the Byzantine Liturgy certainly had some political motivations - they were hoping that a purified Liturgy would lead to the conversion of Russia to union with the Catholic Church. I couldn't have happened, it didn't happen, and won't happen. Some elements in the Orthodox Church - you must be aware - feel that we, as "Roman Catholics" simulating the Byzantine rite, are engaging in proselytism. However, I must concede that at least one good thing resulted, there has been a restoration, and that is to our benefit. We must continue to act for our pastoral benefit, and hope for unity, but not be so certain that we are going to actually sway the Orthodox by our liturgical activity.

Fr. Dave

Fr Deacon John wrote:

Thanks for the clarification. The Litanies I was referring to were from the OCA survey:

Great Litany
Augmented Litany
Litany of the Catechumens
Litanies of the Faithful
Litany of Intercession after the Great Entrance
Litany of Intercession before the Lord's Prayer
Litany of Thanksgiving

The link provided by Fr Deacon Lance shows that the Litany of Thanksgiving is greatly abbreviated in the Revised Liturgy.

I'm not sure which litanies are referred to by "litanies of the faithful," but aside from that (and the Great Litany) the Revised Liturgy does not have any of the other litanies from what I can see.

Yes, I have fond memories of Liturgy at St Stephen (and St Thomas in Gilbert, also--which used to take more of these litanies). Having said that, I would like to see our Church restore more of these litanies.

Why not have the principle that the litanies should be taken at least once (except for the Litany of the Catechumens unless there are actual catechumens being prayed for?)

Dear Father Deacon, thank you for the link and info. It is basically what I had pictured and feared.

Dear Father David, dear Administrator,
My thanks for Father David for his compliment � that was a long posting so I�m glad that it was interesting. This posting, alas, is even longer. For the sake of Christ, forgive me!
Whatever else latinization is, it is indisputably a cultural (or anti-cultural) phenomenon. Saint Peter (Mohyla) of Kiev unquestionably believed that he could best defend Orthodoxy by adopting some of the intellectual armory of the Polish Latins. Into the bargain, he enriched the religious-cultural heritage particularly with his Trebnyk and his Confession of Faith. I confess to some disappointment (though not with either of you): I rather expected that the two reprints of the Mohyla Trebnyk in 1988 would lead to a wealth of scholarly discussion of the book. But we have all been legitimately busy trying to keep up with the ever-increasing pace of events demanding our attention.
I�m not sure that this cultural dimension of what Vellian called �the romanization impulse� weakened all that much; it�s still around, but more complex than it used to be, partly because of the results of Vatican II.
Again, the 1905 Sluzhebnik could be seen as the beginning of the effort to restore the authentic tradition (horrid though the book is) � but the centenary is next year, so we have a little time to write articles and perhaps have a symposium or two. It would be worth doing. Father David mentions that �Some priests still advocate [1905] as the norm today.� It�s a depressing thought, to put it mildly � can one find such priests in the USA, or is the reference to the amazing Byzantine Lefebvrists?
I�ll have to dig out some old catechisms on how to �hear Mass� by combining parts from two distinct celebrations � the rule was (and may still be, for all I know!) that if you had arrived after the Offertory but before the Consecration, you should attend the next Mass up to the completion of the Offertory and could then depart, having fulfilled the �obligation�. I don�t think I ever had occasion to do this, but I may be wrong!
So long as we don�t know what the new translation/edition is, it is scarcely possible to have an intelligent discussion of it, so I must ask to be excused from commenting on it. But I may, I think, ask if it would not be sensible to give the draft wide circulation and encourage people to comment on it?
�Elsewise� can be a word if enough people want to use it! Meanwhile, I shall continue to use �otherwise�, which probably represents the intended meaning.
Father David writes that if he �proposes something concerning the liturgy, it may have some merit, but it is meaningless until it is "vetted" by Byzantine orthodox theologians world-wide�. It is not difficult to understand why Father David might feel that way sometimes � I�ve been there myself! But to be honest, this is exaggerated. I don�t remember ever meeting anyone who would say or be apt to think that Father David lacks an education and/or lacks genuine expertise. At the same time, there is plenty of merit in submitting one�s written work to various forms of criticism � preferably before publication, since after publication the criticism will be much more embarrassing! Even in such a simple matter as finding typographical errors, it�s amazing what some good friends with sharp eyesight can discover in the most carefully-written manuscript. (Forgive the archaism; to mention �manuscript� in an era when we no longer use typewriters, let alone quill pens on parchment, is a bit precious!) Double-checking one�s footnotes is ordinary prudence; finding some long-suffering friends to double-check them is a blessing. And having several competent people read the text carefully can save us from many a howler �a professor who is probably now deceased once, carelessly, allowed the statement to be published under his name, that according to the Council of Trent �there are seven sacraments more or less�.
There is widespread interest in the liturgy, and there is a loose but real community of people who might also claim some specialized knowledge. Sharing one�s insights and inviting others to discuss one�s ideas is not humiliating.
Father David, evidently employing reductio ad absurdum, writes that �if an article proposes change, it must be discounted because it is not scholarly, but if it is scholarly, it will not propose change.� Not so � do we usually deride Father Robert Taft�s proposals for change on the specious ground that he, of all people, is not scholarly? We certainly do not � but neither do we feel obligated to accept all of his proposals.
Perhaps some of the difficulty in this discussion lies in the area of vocabulary. I�ve been criticized for working with an understanding of �tradition� that goes beyond Webster, or even the OED. I plead guilty. The Church�s understanding of tradition goes far beyond the dictionary. The topic is inexhaustible, but one could do a lot worse than to read Congar, Beauduin and Bouyer, to name only three. However, the Church�s full understanding of tradition does not lend itself to sound bites.
Similarly, Father David invokes the term �pastoral�. Trying to arrive at an adequate definition would be quite a challenge and, again, would not lend itself to sound bites. Worse yet, pastoral theology is a field largely neglected by Eastern Orthodoxy. So I ask Father David to understand that if what he means by that term is not fully understood by the readers, this does not mean that he is being read with malicious intent.
Certainly Trembelas�s article is important � as is much more of Trembelas�s work. No argument.
While I am critical of specific translations, the awareness that the Byzantine Liturgy is regularly served in English in the USA does not disturb me. Nothing against Church-Slavonic and/or Greek; I like them and enjoy them both, but I realize that vernacular is a necessity, because the culture around us has changed.
However, Greece and Russia advance different arguments (which I am stating, not supporting): Greece points out that Greek is the original language of both the Scripture and the Byzantine Liturgy, and that abandoning liturgical Greek would cut us off from the Fathers. They are correct so far as it goes, but I and others don�t find the argument convincing. The Russian Church seems to regard Church-Slavonic as having some peculiar variety of holiness which does not impede the use of English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Inuit, Hungarian and so forth but which makes such languages as Russian and Ukrainian unsuitable for liturgical use � it�s hard even to follow the argument, much less be convinced by it!
This is actually a novelty. There are translations of the Divine Liturgy into Russian, and some of them have been around for quite a while. The Moscow Patriarchate did authorize certain parishes to serve in Russian for a time, and it was probably the Soviet government that put a stop to the practice � it suited the Soviets to have religion available only in an unintelligible language. A century ago, people who went to school in Russia learned the rudiments of Church-Slavonic; that has not been true for the past eight decades, so very few people these days can really understand that beautiful but complicated language. The Moscow Patriarchate�s present position is foolish, and is costing them faithful.
Father David argues against �the rubrical "textus receptus" that cannot be changed�. Rather than argue against it, it�s easier to demonstrate that it doesn�t exist. The traditional Byzantine Liturgy has innumerable variations � one could write a book just about variant readings of the Ektene after the Gospel (not a technical term, but most of our participants will know the ektene in question). In my experience, the people who are the most adamant about this mythical immutable textus receptus are, funnily enough, the Ruthenians. The villain of the piece is the unholy combination of a passion for uniformity combined with the abuse of hierarchal authority, attempting to produce what I have termed �liturgical lock-step�. The notion that �the Mass is the same everywhere� does not describe the marvelous diversity of the Byzantine tradition! Nevertheless, there are �acceptable limits of diversity� and then there are violations of those limits.
A pastoral commentary on the Divine Liturgy is an admirable idea; if Father David is writing one I look forward to reading it with careful attention, and I am certain that many others will do likewise.

Now to the Administrator�s posting. To get a side issue out of the way, let me be blunt: I have no vocation or mission to mediate a personality conflict. That is precisely what I wish to avoid.
But I have no trouble at all associating myself with the statement that �The traditional Liturgy of the Ruthenian Recension should be our standard.� By this I would understand that it is necessary for the faithful to have genuine access to that form of the Divine Liturgy � because trying to reform what one does not know is hardly a recipe for success.

The Administrator writes that �Any proposed changes to this standard must be accomplished in concert with the entire Byzantine Church (Catholic and Orthodox)�. That, I suggest, is rather too sweeping a statement. To take a simple example: the current (1941 Church-Slavonic; 1964 English) official Ruthenian Liturgicon requires commemorating the Pope, (the Patriarch), the Metropolitan and the Bishop six times apiece during the Divine Liturgy. Even stranger, during the Great Synapte the Pope is to be commemorated in a petition set apart from the petition during which the rest of the hierarchs in question are commemorated. I strenuously doubt that reducing this to something manageable would cause much of a controversy, or could only �be accomplished in concert with the entire Byzantine Church (Catholic and Orthodox)�. Incidentally, experience shows that most people have difficulty even remembering such a list.
The Administrator puts some question to Father David:
1) �Why does he believe that the specific revisions he proposes are pastoral?� � Surely that is no more than reasonable. Father David�s answer in his more recent posting is nowhere near adequate, as he himself acknowledges.

2) �Why does a revision to the Liturgy need to be mandated? These proposals are clearly very controversial within the rest of the Byzantine Church. Byzantines have a history of allowing the Spirit to lead and then to document the changes a century later. Why must we now remove the freedom of the individual priest to celebrate the traditional Liturgy by mandating revisions that no other Byzantine Church is even considering mandating?� That is also reasonable � and anyone who wants to change the Liturgy would do well always to keep the example of Nicon of Moscow in clear sight. Father David�s response �I am not the one to ask about mandates. I mandate nothing, only the bishop can make liturgical mandates� is worthy of ICEL and is typical of bureaucrats. This is not an attack on Father David, but on his choice of these particular words in this instance.

3) �Why is the traditional Liturgy so unpastoral that our Church must mandate change that is not in concert with the rest of the Byzantine Church? Why specifically is it wrong to wait upon the Spirit to lead the rest of the Byzantine Church along the lines that Father David has proposed?� � this is more than one question, but the questions are sensible: why is coercive force required, and what is the immediate urgency? Father David writes that the Ruthenian US Church has �the same right to act for the pastoral good of our people as any other church�. Precisely. That does not include the right to make major changes to the Liturgy in a unilateral manner.

4) �What specific harm will come to the Ruthenian Church if the standard of the traditional Liturgy is not changed?� The wording is a bit polemic, but the question is not ridiculous. As the Old Ritualists said, �it saved our fathers; why won�t it save us?�. If the reformer cannot answer that adequately, then the reform can wait (a good example of a reform that genuinely could not wait � indeed, that had already waited too long � was the introduction of the vernacular in the USA and elsewhere. It would not be difficult to cite other examples). Father David says that �great harm� is a term requiring definition. That�s not a job for tonight, but it can be done. For myself, I regard the production of yet another travesty of the Byzantine Liturgy as definitely falling under the heading of �great harm�. Father David addresses the Administrator directly, writing that �You said you are concerned "when anyone justifies change by considering it to be pastoral." I fear when pastoral consequences are not taken into account�. I trust that I may be allowed to agree with both of those positions. I certainly am frightened by a process of change that does not take pastoral consequences into account, and I am aghast by justifying change by what can appear to be a buzz-word. As the ancient Romans said, festina lente.

I apologize again for the length of this post.

Fraternally in Christ,

Incognitus

A short response.

Yes, it would be difficult to get a "textus receptus" across the board, there are minor differences in each recension, plus the language difficulty. It is impossible to translate literally from one language to another, though I do not depair that we can translate the basic meaning. However, for the Ruthenian Church (Ukrainians and others) the 1941 text is "textus receptus" though even here there are some difficulties with minor points.

"Pastoral" does need more definition. I think some people would define "pastoral" as keeping it short for the comfort of the people. When I was a new priest and was studying liturgy, I made a visit to Slovakia. While there, at a meal, one of the priests leaned over and in a low, conspiratorial voice asked me, "How can we shorten the Liturgy?" However, and I say this emphatically, "pastoral" does not mean shortening the Liturgy, it means bringing out the best in the liturgy to lead people to God.

I appreciate the value of proof-reading, though i confess In haste I have sometimes overlooked it. Once, when I gave a paper in the Orthodox-Catholic consultation, I mistyped "Sacred Congregation for the Oriental Churches," as the "Scared Congregation for the Oriental Churches. The critic who pointed this out asked if that was what I meant.

Fr. Dave

Neil,

You state:"Yes, the Romanians are of the Byzantine-Greek Tradition"

Actually I believe they are of the Byzantine-Slavonic Tradition. The Romanians received the Byzantine Tradition from the Bulgarians who forced them to use Slavonic for a long time. It was rather late Romanian came to be used for their Liturgy.

Fr. Deacon Lance

My thanks to Father David for his response. Maybe the typo he mentions explains why the term "Sacred" has been dropped from the titles of the Roman dicasteries!
Incognitus

Not a criticism, but a caveat really. The impulse to tradition can mean just about anything unless "tradition" is defined, in context. And as the anecdote of Father Taft illustrates, appeals to "tradition" often amount to finding proof-text-like precedents for whatever one likes to support.

On the other thread (with the text), we have the deposit of SS. Basil and John Chysostom held up as the standard, but as Father David has previously pointed out, this specific "tradition" has developed enormously since their time: reverting to what they passed on would make for a liturgy hardly recognizable within Eastern Christianity. We also had reference to the "nec plus..." remark, unfortunately with no standard of tradition from which to gauge departure.

Antiphons have been mentioned. What is the standard, what is the tradition? Three verses simultaneously represents a dramatic elaboration and a dramatic abbreviation of "tradition".
http://www.sspeterpaul.org/antiphn1.htm#Antiochian

Overall, ISTM that from the very beginning, "dinking" with the liturgy is traditional practice.

Dear Neil, Fr. Deacon Lance is correct. There is a strong connection between the Romanian and Slavic churches, for example the great St. Peter Mohyla, one of the most prominent of the Orthodox Metropolitans of Kyiv, was from Iassi in Romania. Conversely St. Paissius Velychkovsky (along with other Ukrainian and Russian monastics) resided in a Romanian monastery where he composed most of his great works.

One can make a very good effort to define tradition - I named three authors who have devoted considerable time and energy to this topic and produced good results. But this term cannot adequately be defined in a sound-bite.
Incognitus

I thank Father David for his posts on this topic. I was away for a few days but would like to respond now. I suspect we will have to agree to disagree on some issues.

I would first like to comment on Father David�s articles for the eparchial newspapers. I have a collection of them (I have saved almost all of them) and I do wish that Father David had the time to turn them into a long essay, one complete with references. As I have stated previously they are quite excellent and very educational. I have profited from reading them. I may disagree with some of Father David�s points but that is something different. The articles themselves are written at a level that is perfect for an eparchial newspaper. If Father David developed them too much more then they would not remain suitable for a weekly column. My suggestion that the articles do not provide a sufficient theology upon which to revise the liturgy is not a criticism of the articles. An eparchial newspaper column just isn�t the vehicle needed to address the theology that I believe needs presenting on the topic of liturgical revision.

I disagree with Father David on his definition of the �traditional� Liturgy. For me the traditional liturgy must be the one published at Rome in Church Slavonic and which the 1964 liturgicon does a good job of presenting in English. I do not believe that the mandates to remove petitions from litanies, require certain presbyterial prayers be taken aloud, and etc., can be considered traditional. [This is not to say that the 1940s liturgicon is a perfect reflection of the Ruthenian Recension but that is another discussion.] Any mandate away from the rubrics in the official text for the Ruthenian Recension cannot be considered traditional. Father David believes that the changes that have been mandated are in keeping with the traditional liturgy but he has not really presented a compelling argument that this is so. Neither has he presented a compelling argument that the changes he wishes to be mandated are pastoral. Telling us that the proposed revisions are traditional and pastoral doe not make them traditional and pastoral. [And I very much agree with Father David that pastoral does not mean �short�.]

Father David asks the counter-question, �who must wait for the Spirit to lead the others before we follow the Spirit too? The point is that we have the same right to act for the pastoral good of our people as any other church.� To a certain extent I agree with this statement. The Spirit most certainly leads. But such promptings must always be tested against the received tradition. It seems to me that if these revisions are the will of the Spirit then the Spirit will also act similarly in the other Byzantine Churches. There should be no hurry to mandate them. It will take several generations to recover what we have lost and this should be done before even thinking of revising our inheritance. I just don�t see how it could possibly be considered pastoral to mandate revisions that will further separate us from the rest of the Byzantine Church. To me, the need to maintain a liturgicon that is faithful to the traditional Ruthenian Recension is extremely pastoral. Although it would be a difficult project and some of the other Byzantine Churches might not be interested, I believe that the most pastoral thing we could do is to work with all the Byzantine Churches (Catholic and Orthodox) to produce common texts for the Divine Liturgy. This seems far more pastoral and good for our Church than creating a Third Way by revising our liturgical tradition. Our Church certainly has the right and requirement to be pastoral but we do not and should not have the authority to rewrite the liturgy that properly belongs to the entire Byzantine Church.

I do very much agree with the point that Incognitus made that my statement �Any proposed changes to this standard must be accomplished in concert with the entire Byzantine Church (Catholic and Orthodox)� is rather sweeping. I can assure Incognitus that I have no grandiose visions of a world-wide council of Byzantines to address these issues. I do, however, believe that one recension should not unilaterally mandate a revision to the tradition. And that in no case can a single Church make major changes to the whole. I think that most pastoral thing we could do would be to organize (as I noted above) a team of knowledgeable liturgical experts from every Byzantine jurisdiction to prepare a faithful translation of all of the texts of all the recensions of the Byzantine Church into English (as far as is possible). I think that this would be of great pastoral benefit in assisting at least the entire English-speaking Byzantine Church (Catholic and Orthodox) to celebrate from a common liturgicon and to grow in the same direction. [Yes, I know very well that there are practical difficulties in accomplishing this but we must at least try. If this is not possible among at least the Catholic and Orthodox Churches then it should certainly be possible at the level of English speaking Byzantine Catholics or, at a minimum, only those Churches of the Ruthenian Recension.]

Welcome back to the Administrator. Perhaps Father David would eventually � and not in the too distant future � publish the collected set of his newspaper articles but with adequate critical apparatus.
The Administrator writes that he disagrees with Father David�s definition of the traditional Liturgy. But has Father David in fact provided such a definition at all?
As a working model, it is reasonable to start with the 1941 Church-Slavonic Ruthenian Recension text, certainly. And any replacement of a serious nature (something more than, say, the deletion of references to the Christian Sovereign � since we don�t have one and are unlikely to have one anytime soon) will not be considered legitimate unless they are supported by agreed and strong sources.
I�d be interested if anyone could tell us what is going on with the Divine Liturgy in Uzhhorod these days. Does anyone know?
In any case, as I have said before and will no doubt say again, the very least that the 1941 Divine Liturgy and its companion volumes deserve is a fair chance.
I fully agree with the Administrator that �It will take several generations to recover what we have lost and this should be done before even thinking of revising our inheritance.� There is still a fad for innovation, which is all the more reason to resist innovation. Nor is there any valid reason to seek to create some sort of �new� Liturgy to divide us still further precisely from those with whom our Liturgy should unite us.
More efforts at producing common texts with at least some of the Byzantine Churches who serve in English and with whom the Byzantine Ruthenian Metropolia in the USA lives side-by-side would not be impossible. An impetus to revive the SCOBA project might well succeed; it would certainly be worth trying. That might be painful, not only because of the possiblity of failure but also because an honest effort would necessitate abandoning some shibolleths (such as the insistence on certain English-language versions of the Bible that the Orthodox will not and should not accept).

While I am naturally pleased when someone agrees with me on something, it is possible that in so agreeing the Administrator misunderstood my point about the need to accomplish change in concert with the other Byzantine Churches, both Catholic and Orthodox. I simply meant that minor changes are possible for Local Churches and major changes require a consensus � as Father David mentioned in response to something else that I wrote, there are many minor differences in the texts and practices of the Divine Liturgy amonst the various Local Churches. But it is still recognizably the same service. Put it this way: it is not very important if Metropolitan So-and-So awards Mitred Archpriest X the privilege of serving with open Royal Doors; it is quite another matter if Metropolitan So-and-So demands that every parish should tear down the entire Icon Screen and no new ones should be allowed.
I�d love to see (and participate in) a world-wide council of Byzantines to address these issues. Unfortunately the opportunity is unlikely to arise anytime soon.

Incognitus

Dear Diak,

Excellent points!

St Paissy also introduced the cult of Sts Volodymyr and Olha, the Kyivan Caves Lavra and St Dmitri of Rostov to Romania.

St Paissy is also called "St Paisius of Romania" as he renewed that Church and had many followers who were Romanians and St Pachomios the Roman (Romanian) died in the Kyivan Lavra and another St Antipas was a Romanian who lived in the ancient Valaam monastery.

The point being that Romanians and Wallachians such as St Peter Mohyla saw in Kyiv their "Mother Church."

My mother is also Romanian, Eastern Catholic with Orthodox in her family (Timisoara).

Romanians truly do look to Kyiv as to a Mother Church, even though they have strong ties to Constantinople - and to Rome too!

Alex