Studies on the Byzantine Liturgy - 1

Studies on the Byzantine Liturgy - 1 The Draft Translation: A Response to the Proposed Recasting of the Byzantine-Ruthenian Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom Serge Keleher 2006 Copyright © 2006 Serge Keleher Stauropegion Press PO Box 11096 Pittsburgh, PA 15237‐9998 ii This small work is dedicated to Metropolitan Joseph (Raya) Archbishop of St. Jean d’Acre, Haifa, Nazareth and All Galilee Who fell asleep in the Lord on 10 June 2005 as this work was nearing completion. “For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the Gospel.” I Corinthians 4:14‐15 May Archbishop Joseph’s Memory be Eternal! iii iv Exordium: For a number of reasons, including the need to avoid any fresh differences with our separated brothers, the Eastern Catholic Church must avoid any idea of adapting its rites without prior agreement with the corresponding branches of the Orthodox Church. We must not allow the adaptation of the liturgy to become an obsession. The liturgy, like the inspired writings, has a permanent value apart from the circumstances giving rise to it. Before altering a rite we should make sure that a change is strictly necessary. The liturgy has an impersonal character and also has universality in space and time. It is, as it were, timeless and thus enables us to see the divine aspect of eternity. These thoughts will enable us to understand what at first may seem shocking in some of the prayers of the liturgy – feasts that seem no longer appropriate, antiquated gestures, calls to vengeance which reflect a pre‐Christian mentality, anguished cries in the darkness of the night, and so on. It is good to feel oneself thus linked with all the ages of mankind. We pray not only with our contemporaries but with men who have lived in all centuries. We hope that this reminder of the principle of conservation in the liturgy coming from an Eastern patriarch will temper somewhat the ardour of reformers in both East and West. His Holiness Maximos IV, Patriarch of Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem and All the East. The Eastern Churches and Catholic Unity, Herder 1963, cited passage on page 226. v vi Contents Part I: the Context 1 1. Why These Comments? 3 2. The Controversy in its Historical Setting 13 3. A Process of Secrecy 47 4. Gender‐Inclusive Language? 53 Part II: Observations on the 12 October 2004 Draft 67 5. The 12 October 2004 Draft Recasting/Translation 69 6. Some Notable Improvements 131 7. The Antiphons of the Enarxis 135 8. Some Rubrical Problems 139 9. Some Textual Inaccuracies 169 10. Some Questionable Translations 199 11. Offering the Anaphora Aloud 241 Part III: Conclusion 261 12. Some Unanswered Questions 263 13. What Now? 269 Appendix A‐1 vii viii Part I The Context 1 Chapter 1—Why Comments From an “Outsider”? 2 Chapter 1—Why Comments From an “Outsider”? Chapter 1 Why Comments from an “Outsider”? In most areas of discussion, such a question would not arise; people review books, drafts and the like every day without requiring a particular “title” to justify the exercise. But since this writer is not a member of the Byzantine‐Ruthenian Metropolitanate of Pittsburgh, does not live in the United States of America and English is not his language of choice, neither for the Divine Liturgy nor for much else, it would be naïve to assume that no one will ask what the draft of 12 October 2004 has to do with this writer. Several friends have asked for a response to the draft of 12 October 2004. The draft of 12 October 2004 is certainly of interest. The Byzantine‐Ruthenian Metropolitanate of Pittsburgh is an important Local Church in the Anglo‐ Byzantine world and English has become the most accessible language through which scholars, clergy and faithful of the several Eastern Orthodox and Greek‐Catholic Churches are likely to communicate with each other. What the Pittsburgh Metropolitanate does in these matters will inevitably have some effect on the other Local Churches, if only by ricochet. The Byzantine liturgical tradition is the common property of all the Churches which make use of that tradition – and is indeed part of the common heritage of all Christians.1 Hence it 1 Vatican II, Orientalium Ecclesiarum, § 5: “History, tradition and so many ecclesiastical institutions bear outstanding witness how much the Eastern Churches have merited for the universal Church. The Sacred Council, therefore, not only accords to this ecclesiastical and spiritual 3 Chapter 1—Why Comments From an “Outsider”? is more than legitimate for Christians of other Local Churches to take an interest in what the Pittsburgh Metropolitanate is doing in liturgical matters; it would be strange if other Greek‐ Catholics and Eastern Orthodox did not take an interest and offer various thoughts on the subject. With specific reference to the Byzantine liturgical tradition and the Roman liturgical tradition, these passages from a recent book are particularly striking: …the great forms of rite embrace many cultures. They…create communion among different cultures and languages. They elude control by any individual, local community, or regional Church. Unspontaneity is of their essence. In these rites I discover that something is approaching me here that I did not produce myself, which ultimately derives from divine revelation. That is why the Christian East calls the liturgy the “Divine Liturgy,” expressing thereby the liturgy’s independence from human control.2 Eventually, the idea of the given‐ness of the liturgy, the fact that one cannot do with it what one will, faded from the public consciousness.…However, it would lead to the breaking up of the foundations of Christian identity if the fundamental intuitions of the East, which are the fundamental intuitions of the early Church, were abandoned.…Still less is any kind of general ‘freedom’ of manufacture, degenerating into spon‐ taneous improvisation, compatible with the essence of faith and liturgy. The greatness of the liturgy depends heritage the high regard which is its due and rightful praise, but also unhesitatingly looks on it as the heritage of the universal Church of Christ.” 2 Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), The Spirit of the Liturgy, trans. John Saward (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000), 165. Emphasis added. 4 Chapter 1—Why Comments From an “Outsider”? – we shall have to repeat this frequently – on its unspontaneity.3 The life of the liturgy does not come from what dawns upon the minds of individuals and planning groups… the liturgy becomes personal, true, and new, not through tomfoolery and banal experiments with the words, but through a courageous entry into the great reality that through the rite is always ahead of us and can never quite be overtaken. …there can be development in the “Divine Liturgy,” a development, though, that takes place without haste or aggressive intervention, like the grain that grows ‘of itself’ in the earth (cf. Mk 4:28)….there can be variations within the ritual families.4 Two examples come to mind of such an organic development without haste or aggressive intervention, examples which many Greek‐Catholics and Eastern Orthodox have beheld and enjoyed personally: a) the restoration of the Divine Liturgy of Presanctified Gifts. Fifty or sixty years ago in North America, the use of this service in parishes was quite exceptional, both among Eastern Orthodox and among Greek‐Catholics. Now it has become exceptional not to have the Divine Liturgy of Presanctified Gifts. This was not accomplished by any decree or act of coërcion; rather it was done by patient celebration of the service in the seminaries, making the necessary texts available, and allowing the practice to spread in its own way, guided by the Holy Spirit. There were some problems on local levels; 3 Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), The Spirit of the Liturgy, trans. John Saward (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000), 166. 4 Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), The Spirit of the Liturgy, trans. John Saward (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000), 169. Emphasis added. 5 Chapter 1—Why Comments From an “Outsider”? everything did not move simultaneously on an imposed timetable – but the results are wonderful. b) The proclamation of the Resurrection Gospel at the doors of the temple on Holy Pascha. This custom may have arisen either in Jerusalem or in Constantinople; it was well established in the Greek Churches by the last quarter of the nineteenth century. From there, it has been spreading – almost unnoticeably, but effectively. It was in use at Saint Vladimir’s Seminary in 1963. Father Alexander Schmemann did not present this to the seminarians as something mandatory; he simply proclaimed that Gospel himself. Many alumni of the seminary took up the practice, so that it has begun to spread to Slavic Churches which did not know of this previously. No one has imposed it – but no one has objected; reading this Gospel is quite effective. The Holy See has expressed the intention of elaborating a corpus of norms, in collaboration with the Churches concerned, to adapt the 1996 Instruction for applying the Liturgical Prescriptions of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches5 for the entire Byzantine liturgical family and yet for each specific Local Church. Clearly the Church expects the entire Byzantine liturgical family to take a fraternal interest in these matters. At the same time, the various Local Churches of the Byzantine liturgical family have well‐established local customs and variant readings of any number of liturgical texts. These differences do not necessarily detract from the essential unity of the Byzantine liturgical tradition; rather they provide a welcome dimension of richness and a heritage from which all benefit and which all may share in any number of ways.

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