Lux Occidentalis The Orthodox Western Rite and the Liturgical Tradition of Western Orthodox Christianity with reference to the Orthodox Missal, Saint Luke’s Priory Press, Stanton, NJ, 1995. by the Rev’d John Charles Connely, M.A. Rector of St. Mark’s Parish, (The Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America), 1405 South Vine Street Denver, Colorado 80210 EMAIL: [email protected] World Wide Web: www.westernorthodox.com unsound and pastorally unwise. L UX “Liturgically unsound because these rites are not in direct conti- nuity with the worship of the early O CCIDENTALIS Church in the West, but are prima- The Orthodox Western Rite and the rily the result of 16th century Reformation or Counter Liturgical Tradition of Western Reformation debates; Orthodox Christianity with reference pastorally unwise because this to the Orthodox Missal, Saint Luke’s adds still further to our fragmenta- Priory Press, Stanton, NJ, 1995. tion as a Church in the Americas by the Rev’d John Charles Connely, M.A. and creates a tiny group of mis- sions and parishes that are liturgi- Rector of St. Mark’s Parish, (The Antiochian cally isolated from the rest of the Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America), Church.” 1405 South Vine Street, Denver, Colorado 80210 The encyclical includes guidelines to avoid improper activities: HE Greek Orthodox Bishop of San “1. ‘Western-rite’ clergy of the Antiochian Archdiocese may not TFrancisco, His Grace, Bishop serve or receive communion in the Anthony, recently issued a negative parishes of this Diocese unless ‘encyclical’ rehashing some common vested in traditional, ‘eastern’ Orthodox vestments. complaints against the Orthodox Western “2. Clergy of this Diocese may not Rite. The encyclical is here reprinted from serve or participate in ‘western-rite’ liturgies. Diocesan News for Clergy and Laity of the “3. The participation of our laity in Greek Orthodox Diocese of Denver, April any pan-orthodox liturgical activity 1996: specifically with ‘western-rite’ parishes is to be actively discour- “His Grace Bishop Anthony of San aged. Francisco recently issued an encyclical concerning the ‘Western BISHOP Anthony’s statement that Rite’ Orthodox parishes. These are Orthodox Churches “these rites are not in direct continuity which do not use the Divine Liturgy with the worship of the early Church in of Saint John Chrysostom and the West” is not supplied with biblio- Saint Basil, but instead celebrate revised versions of the Anglican graphical references. The reader cannot, and Roman mass. In America there therefore, discern Bishop Anthony’s litur- are such parishes under the gical sources regarding the Western Rites Antiochian Archdiocese, the Moscow Patriarchate, and the of the Church. The Orthodox clergy and Russian Orthodox Church Outside laity in America deserve information as Russia. to our history and progress. To this end, Bishop Anthony issued this encycli- cal in response to numerous we humbly offer the following essay: inquiries by the clergy and lay peo- T HE W ESTERN R ITES OF THE ple on how to treat these parishes. His Grace Bishop Anthony makes EARLY C HURCH clear that while we accept the priests and lay people of these The Liturgy of St. Peter (commonly parishes as fully Orthodox we are known as the Liturgy of St. Gregory), is to avoid any activity which would found, substantially as it has been used in tend to imply agreement with the the Latin Church until Vatican II (1969)1, formation of such parishes. The reason for this disagreement is in the Sacramentaries of St. Gregory twofold: it is both liturgically [590], Gelasius [491] and St. Leo [483]. The Roman Liturgy is attributed to St. ary work, that of Spain also. This Liturgy Peter by ancient liturgical commentators, continued in the French Church until the who founded their opinion chiefly upon time of Charlemagne [742-814]. Minor a passage in an Epistle of Innocent [fifth additions had been made by Musæus, century], to Decentius, Bishop of Sidonius, and St. Hilary of Poitiers. These Eugubium. St. Gregory revised the vari- additions were restricted to the Introits, able parts of the liturgy, the Collects, Collects, and Minor Propers. This Epistles, and Gospels; but the only ‘Gallican’ Liturgy was partly supplanted change which he made in the Ordinary by the Roman at the time of Pepin, who was by the addition of a few words introduced the Roman system of chant which is noticed by the Venerable Bede and psalmody and finally it was altogeth- [Hist. Eccl. Lib.2, c.I.].2 er superseded through Charlemagne, Since the time of St. Gregory the who obtained the Sacramentary of St. Roman Liturgy has been used over a Gregory from Rome and issued an edict large part of the Western Church, and, that all priests should celebrate only in until 1969, was practically the only one the Roman manner. In Spain the same allowed by Rome. From the Roman Liturgy had been used in a form called Liturgy in its primitive form were Mozarabic; but Pope Gregory VII, caused derived that used by the Churches of Alphonso VI., king of Castile and Leon, North-western Africa, and the Ambrosian to abolish the national rite and substitute Rite of the Church of Milan. that of Rome. The Mozarabic Rite was The Liturgy of St. John, or of St. restored in the sixteenth century by Paul, i.e. the Ephesine Liturgy, was the Cardinal Ximenes who endowed a col- original of that which was used, probably lege and chapel for its use at Toledo, in three forms, in Spain, France, and which continues to this day. England during the earlier period, and When Augustine [of Canterbury] the only one besides the Roman which came to England in 595, at the direction obtained a footing in the Western Church. of St. Gregory of Rome, he expected to This appears to have been abandoned in find a heathen land. What he discovered Ephesus at the time of the Council of was an ancient and regularly organized Laodicea in Phrygia in the fourth century. Church and that its usages were in many The 19th Canon of that Council giving ways different from those of his native directions for the substitution of the Rome. By the advice of St. Gregory, he Liturgy of St. Basil, which use continued introduced some changes into the exist- to modern times. However, at a much ing Liturgy, not from the Roman earlier date, missionaries had taken the Sacramentary but rather from forms Liturgy of St. John to Lyons, the city from already in use in the south of France. The which Christianity spread throughout English Church of St. Augustine’s day France. As late as A.D. 177, the Christians and for long after, consistently claimed of Lyons wrote to the Churches of Asia that its customs derived from St. John respecting the martyrdoms which had and from the Church of Ephesus, by way occurred in that city. The primitive of Lyons. This is the Liturgical heritage Liturgy of Ephesus thus became the litur- that was revised by St. Osmund, Bishop gy of France and by additional mission- of Salisbury, in 1085. A directory of serv- ices was compiled by Richard le Poore English from Latin; 2) the commemora- [d.1237] and soon the Sarum Use tion of the Patriarch and Synod of [Salisbury] was followed in nearly the Antioch rather than Rome; and 3) the whole of England, Wales, and Ireland. addition of an explicit “descending” Most interesting is the recent reprint- invocation (epiclesis) of the Holy Ghost ing of an English Sacramentary that pre- (following the Institution Narrative) in dates St. Osmond and the Norman the Canon of Consecration (anaphora). Conquest [1066] by nearly a century. The T HE T RIDENTINE R EFORM Sacramentary is known as the Missal of Robert of Jumièges. Robert served as Bishop Anthony’s reference to the Bishop of London from 1044, and, in “Counter Reformation” is curious. One of 1051, on St. Peter’s Day [29 June], was the myths presently circulating about the enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury. Rite of St. Gregory the Great is that it is Robert had given this Missal to the “Tridentine”—i.e., it is no older than the monastery of Jumièges in France as a Council of Trent [1545-1563]. This criti- memorial of himself as he had once cism is made by those who know nothing presided there as abbot. The book about either this Rite or the Council of remained at Jumièges until the dissolu- Trent or the Missal of Pius V [1570]. In tion of the monastery in 1791, when it fact, all that was done at Trent, liturgical- passed to the Public Library of Rouen, ly speaking, was to standardize the wor- where it is still preserved! At Rouen it has ship of the West. This was done princi- been known as “the book of S. Guthlac” pally in two ways: as the first leaf of the manuscript contains First, the Council (together with Pope a Mass for the Feast of S. Guthlac. The Pius V) suppressed all Western Rites that manuscript is a fine specimen of English did not have a continuous history of at writing and illumination from about the least two hundred years. This effectively year 1000, as evidenced by the Votive eliminated all but the Ambrosian Rite of Mass and Vespers of St. Edward Martyr Milan, the Mozarabic Rite of Toledo, [†978]. The Missal now contains 228 Spain, and the Gregorian Rite of the City numbered leaves, measuring nearly 13 of Rome itself, sometimes therefore called 1/4 inches by 8 3/4 inches. This Missal is the Roman Rite. [* Simple variations available in an edition by the Henry within the Roman Rite, such as existed Bradshaw Society, the Boydell Press, Bury among the Benedictines, Dominicans, St.