We recently painted the Holy Place, the nave, and the adjoining hallways at the local Byzantine parish. Personally, I think the soft blue goes quite well with the Ukrainian church and is a welcomed changed from the dirty old white walls.
And the last of the Latinizations, the stations of the Cross, have
been removed and replaced with real icons. Should any of you
wish to give us even more icons, we are always open to
your beneficence!
Good job raping and pillaging the traditions of generations of Ukrainian Cathokics in the name of your boutique liturgical fetish.
ReplyDeletethis
DeleteWut?
DeleteMr opuspublicum, perhaps you should try fish net stockings or some leather before you use the term "fetish" to describe the application of blue paint and removal of pictures.
DeleteYes, let the 1950's fanatics roar!
ReplyDeleteI, for one, welcome this change to my home church and see it as a glorious triumph against plastic 19th century pietism. If there are any Society of St. Josaphat lunatics who wish to reenact the Old Believer war, then I shall prepare my ax (my real one, not the internet one). If only we could start disposing of the anachronistic effeminate Caucasian "Jesus" depictions...
If it's fetishes we're discussing there's quite a few I can think of FAR worse than a liturgical one ("How DARE someone like liturgy?!!!!"), or far more fun. Perhaps I can recommend a few to those who wish to pretend there ever existed an idyllic 1950's "True Church"? Give my extensive personal experience in the insanity of the tradosphere, I'm sure could remember a couple...
If anyone is curious what I was referring to earlier, here's a prime example. Thanks.
DeleteMy post is a prime example of nothing but the sentiments of one parishoner at this church in question. Said parishoner is Roman (though, Econe-ian would be more accurate) in origin and discovered what normal parish life was like when one does away with the nonsense of hardline traddies.
DeleteLet me assure you, there is no "Boutique liturgical fetish" going on here. Merely a decision to do away with latinizations no one in the church uses anymore. The push towards Byzantine Greek spirituality is a welcome one in a world wrought by the out-of-control rationalism of Rome.
No, there is no forced delatinization here. There was little to delatinize and it was done respectfully and gradually. The model used in this church is not "the current Russian" praxis (Why would it be? Many of the parishoners remember the Soviet era) but one that is distinctly Slavic, Ukrainian, and rooted in the Greek way of doing things. The only place I have seen Russophiles in a Catholic Church is a local Ruthenian church.
Sometime in history of the Western patriarchate, some new things were introduced. Elevation of the elements after the consecration, kneeling, eucharistic adoration, the rosary etc etc.
ReplyDeleteshould we, westerners, abandon those because they were at some point new?
All those things you mention were endogenous, organic, licit developments of the Western Rite. Not so with the latinisations, which, as the name itself implies, refer to exogenous and inorganic and therefore illicit intrusions within the Eastern Rite. That such practices nourished the devotional lives of some Easterns, fair enough - in the same way, the Akathist hymns (indulgenced, btw) nourishes the devotional lives of many Westerns - but it would be inorganic for it to be included in the Western Rite.
DeletePrecisely.
DeleteAs Fr. Hunwicke pointed out years ago, the latinizations within Byzantine Liturgies are as barbaric and illicit as the orientalizing Epiclesis founded in the new "Eucharistic Prayers" are within the Roman Liturgy. That is the point.
DeleteKyrie eleison
how are stations of the Cross, or Rosary part of the "rite"? those are private devotions.
Deletekneeling is a latinization, but a healthy one, since it existed since ancient times. so much so that the Council of Nicaea sought to forbid it on certain days.
filioque was removed - now that is a matter of faith. to affirm and then not to affirm amounts to denial.
so there were no real barbaric latinizations on the rite itself.
I love an amateur's guide to liturgical history. "Latinization" was not a monolithic "movement" of the West artificially imposing itself on the East, though that did happen from time to time. The incorporation of "Latin" elements into Ukrainian Greek Catholic/Ruthenian piety and liturgy was a mixture of impositions, borrowings, and cross-pollination. To the extent that some of these elements disrupt the integrity of the Byzantine liturgy, they ought to be quietly removed. However, rejoicing over the suppression of the Stations of the Cross or the Rosary -- both of which are private devotions -- strikes me as both extreme and uncharitable. (No, the rosary wasn't mention in this post, but the de-Latinization crowd tends to be rather rabid -- and heavily comprised of converts/outsiders.)
ReplyDeleteUnlike everyone here -- or just about everyone -- I grew up in a "Latinized" Eastern Catholic environment. My family, who hailed from Galicia, came out of that background as well. When you start denigrating their liturgical-devotional environment, one which few if any of you have ever known, that's a bridge too far. Moreover, while I recognize that there is a push within the UGCC and other Byzantine Rite Catholic churches to "purify" their rites and devotions, some of this "purification" has been carried out in an uncharitable and heavy handed -- not to mention historically myopic -- manner. That is what I oppose. One can "purify" the Byzantine Rite in the Catholic Church without taking a triumphalist or arrogant attitude toward what came before. And for those faithful in the Catholic East who still want Eucharistic adoration, rosaries, and the Stations, well God bless them.
The stations of the Cross have never been used at the parish in question and were merely up to decorate the back wall until some icons became available. The parish itself is only two decades old and most of the Latinzations (filioque, kneeling etc) were brought by a former underground Ukrainian priest who is no longer the pastor.
DeleteI like the Rosary and pray it daily. That said it is not an acceptable substitute for the Liturgy, which is often what happened in these settings. When I lived in New Hampshire there was a Melkite Church and a highly Latinized Ukrainian Church in the same town. The Ukrainians would have an opening hymn like Immaculate Mary instead of the Great Doxology, the Rosary rather than Mattins and Lauds, first Communions with the local Roman bishop in his tufted biretta, and all manner of other things; on Good Friday they had Stations of the Cross instead of the Crucifixion service and Vespers. That church draws less than a dozen on Sunday and most of them are old world Ukrainians hanging onto the old days when they were under the eyes of the Soviets. The Melkites on the other hand are drawing 120+.
The parish in question realizes that the Latinized Ukrainian culture is either dying or dead, as is the ethnocentrism once very prevalent in the Greek Catholic Churches and still present in the Orthodox Churches. If they are to survive they must present themselves as practising Byzantine liturgy and spirituality, not as upholders of a mixed cultural pietism.
There is some truth to what you are saying, but the attitude toward de-Latinization is what's on issue here. I am quite familiar with Greek Catholic worship and praxis. While I do not romanticize that past, I find it unbecoming for people to denigrate it (mostly because they weren't there and never knew it).
DeleteTo say that "Latinized Ukrainian culture is either dying or dead" is manifestly incorrect. While there has been, since the early 20th C., a steady shift toward "purifying" the Byzantine Rite in the Catholic Church, it has not been an unproblematic shift for the simple fact that 1596 Ukrainian liturgical praxis should be the norm, not contemporary Russian Orthodox praxis (which is often viewed as "the model" by many de-Latinizers).
I don't follow your point on Lauds since Lauds, as its own service, does not exist in the Byzantine Rite.
Lauds, as its own service, didn't exist in the Roman rite either until 1st January 1961. I suspect the Rad Trad was referring to Orthros.
DeleteI certainly was referring to Orthros, but did not know if the Slavs use a different term for the service than the Greek/Arab tradition I know.
Deletei know that you, The Rad Trad, have eastern icons in your home. almost everyone who calls himself catholic traditionalist has at least one icon.
Deletei would like to see your reaction if your icons were taken away and replaced with renaissance paintings.
i don't think you would be glad.
As I said above, in that particular church no one uses the stations. It was the priest's initiative to move them, and we supported it.
DeleteAs usual Rubricarius obscures reality in order to make his usual anti-1962 point. Matins and Lauds could be separated prior to 1962 and any brief perusal of a Roman Breviary, with its instruction to omit the Pater and Ave before Lauds if it immediately succeeds Matins, shows as much. So that's a non-point.
DeleteOrthros is the same office as Matins in the Byzantine Rite, and there can be no separating out Lauds as its own service from it. Since the 19th C., many Greek and Antiochian Orthodox parishes have used a mutilated form of Matins which, at points, bears faint resemblance to the order of Matins served in Greek monastic and Russian/Slavic parish settings. If only looks at the proper order for Matins in a Greek Horologion, one will see few differences in structure and rubrics from the Russo-Slavic versions. But again the original point stands: There is no separate service of Lauds in the Orthodox Church.
Anyway, another point worth noting is that kneeling, though "illicit" according to certain rubric Nazis, can be found in a number of Orthodox churches and the practice has nothing to do with "Latinizations." It'd probably be helpful if some of you -- you know -- knew something about Orthodoxy other than what you gleaned from a book or when you played liturgical tourist one weekend.
"i would like to see your reaction if your icons were taken away and replaced with renaissance paintings.
Deletei don't think you would be glad."
Au contraire, I would be overwhelmed with joy if my half dozen icons were replaced with half a dozen Renaissance pieces. I would take the little things to the nearest Christie's or Southeby's, pope them for a few million, use the money to pay my student loans, make a few well placed donations, and then purchase a residence somewhere tropical (with an icon corner unto its own).
****"pop them...."
DeletePeople kneel. There's nothing strange about that. I think you are whacking at a straw man with regards to "rubric Nazis", especially since I have not seen anyone more legalistic about rubrics than the Ultra-trads. The only time you shouldn't kneel in Byzantine tradition is in the Greek/Arab tradition in Paschal season (the Slavs do not follow this).
DeleteI am closing comments on this post because they have gotten too vicious for my taste. It suffices to say that I was obviously talking about Orthros (a service I sang weekly for two years) using the Western terminology. Also Mattins and Lauds as a liturgical service were never separated in the Roman rite until 1961. Lauds, in private recitation when separated from Mattins begins with a Pater and Ave before Deus in adjutorium.
Delete